Writing or Living

Dutch author Arnon Grunberg collected almost 500 pages of writings from several authors, all of whom lived the horrors of  the KZ Auschwitz during WW II till its liberation on January 27th, 1945.

No happy readings their memories but stories I need to take in as they belong to the era and region I'm born and raised in... no matter I sometimes must turn away my eyes, in shock, from reading the line further ~ the heroes, authors however could not turn away their eyes from what hell they witnessed.

This Season of the year is my time for reading WW II stories and they always remind me of the books from Jorge Semprun. On April 11th of 1987, 42 years after the liberation of the KZ Buchenwald and his liberation, Jorge Semprun learned of the sudden death of Auschwitz survivor and author Primo Levi.
Primo Levi had probably committed suicide then and Jorge Semprun realised that despite the 42 years Levi had  managed to withstand the demons of his memories of Auschwitz and had written books, to testify of life in the heart of hell, he'd not managed to hold on to life despite his brave efforts.

Jorge Semprun had wanted to become an author and had noticed after his liberation from Buchenwald in 1945 and later, that he couldn't write down his experiences and testify, coz memories arroused demons that drove him close to suicide; so Semprun chose to live and forget and thus not to write.

But here's a camp survivor who'd written about his camp experiences from as soon as 1945 and managed a career next to his writings, but 42 years onwards he could not prevent himself from committing suicide as his life was so difficult ever since his survival of those death camps.

Primo Levi had written in order to live and till then Jorge Semprun had denounced writing in order to live and he even tried to forget in order to live, but on reading about Primo Levi's death in the newspaper of April 11th of 1987, Jorge Semprun changed his life and from then onwards he had to write down his memories with the deathcamp experiences and withstand his demons in order to live...

10 Years later a book of his had the title  "Writing or Living (1997).