50 pages • 1 hour read
Primo LeviThe Truce
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1963A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Cesare”
During the final days in the Lager, Levi befriended a fellow Italian named Cesare. When Cesare was terribly sick, Levi brought him water. They reunite in the Katowice camp and Cesare is a changed man. Not only is his health restored; he is flourishing in the camp. After being made to work by the Russians, he faked an illness so that he would be sent to the infirmary. Following their reunion, Cesare and Levi remain “inseparable until the return journey” (246).
One day, an important Soviet general comes to inspect the camp. Levi and others are made to clean the filthy latrines, which are eventually deemed too filthy and simply condemned. The general does not appear. When April arrives, Levi and his fellow survivors “being to feel [themselves] truly free” (248). Levi explores the neighboring town with Cesare, finding that many shops and cafes are open. Since they have no money, however, they must steal or trick their way through the town. Though such behavior is alien to Levi, Cesare has no shame or guilt. He and another Italian named Giacomantonio buy and sell anything they can to make a profit.
Levi occasionally accompanies Cesare, though he is reluctant to involve himself in his friend’s schemes. Many people are charmed by Cesare, including the Polish locals who understand nothing of what he is saying. He often sells items to passing Russian soldiers; when the soldiers discover that the items are not what they were said to be, they have already marched too far away to complain to Cesare. According to Levi, Cesare is well-practiced in “the art of the charlatan” (254).
Chapter 6 Summary: “Victory Day”
Life at Katowice is one of “boredom” (257). While Levi languishes, his disreputable friend Cesare begins to flourish. He ingratiates himself with the other survivors, chatting amiably and selecting humorous nicknames for others. Since he loves to haggle, sell, and hustle, people entrust him to swap their possessions for money. He takes a commission so he is never short of money.
Cesare occasionally vanishes from the camp for days at a time. One day, after returning after several days away, he reveals that he has met a local Polish woman. Though he loves her, and she seemingly loves him, he does not speak Polish, so they cannot speak to one another. He is annoyed that Levi will not translate for him, even though Levi cannot speak Polish.
As the weeks pass, and Cesare spends more time away with his girlfriend, news filters through to the camp about the defeat of Nazi Germany. The war ends on May 8th, 1945, and the entire camp—survivors and soldiers alike—celebrate in “a fit of delirious enthusiasm” (261). Any trace of discipline vanishes as a great party is organized. During this time, Cesare returns to the camp. He saw his girlfriend with a Russian soldier and is now convinced that, as well as being betrayed, he is now being pursued by the entire Red Army.
Though the war is ended, Levi encounters a “total lack of news from Italy” (262). Nevertheless, the people at Katowice celebrate with a number of performances. They sing, dance, and perform sketches for one another. Levi describes the unfamiliar Russian songs and shows, put on for the survivors by the doctors, nurses, and soldiers. The locals play the Italians in a soccer match, officiated by the NKVD captain. He plays the role of referee in a strange, self-important manner and the match is eventually abandoned due to a deluge of rain. Having stayed out in the rain, Levi falls ill. He contracts pneumonia and can hardly move.
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Dreamers”
Levi’s illness concerns Leonardo. With assistance from Cesare, Leonardo tries to source whatever drugs he can to treat Levi. He visits a “not very legal, but well-equipped” (268) surgery in the nearby town, run by Dr. Gottleib, who was at Auschwitz in some mysterious capacity. With Gottlieb’s help, Levi recovers. The pain goes but Levi is very hungry and weak. He is consigned to his room for three weeks, reading anything he can obtain while outside the air is “full of spring and victory” (270).
The dormitory is shared with other Italian men. Avesani is known as “the Moor from Verona.” He is a large man who carries an axe and bundle with him, wherever he goes. There is also the lice-ridden thief, Ferrari; a perpetually frustrated rebel named Trovati, who enlists people to reenact his famous trial; and an “accomplished rogue” (273) from Turin named Cravero, who decided to return to Turin by himself and carried a letter from Levi to Levi’s mother.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Southwards”
When he has recovered, Levi takes long walks. Doses of insulin help him, though he occasionally feels faint and must receive further treatment. The Italians, he learns, will be repatriated via Odessa. When news that they are to return home spreads through the camp, the survivors celebrate.
Cesare and Levi spend their Polish money in the nearby town, assuming that it will be useless on their journey. They meet a shopkeeper who, learning that they were in Auschwitz, tells them her story. She is a German woman who openly criticized Adolf Hitler after her husband was killed by the Nazis. She was exiled to Poland, where she was adopted by the local community. At Katowice, Leonardo and Levi hand over their infirmary and say goodbye. Levi is bemused that he is told to sign a paper of thanks to the Soviet staff.
The survivors then board a train; their convoy is led by Dr. Gottleib, who has appointed himself as their escort. The journey is chaotic and slow. At each stop, the officials are unaware of the survivors’ journey. Warrants are forged, ignored, and forgotten. For the still-recovering Levi, the journey is a “boundless torment” (283). The behavior of the Russian soldiers and Soviet civilians confuses Levi. After a three-day stop in Zhmerinka, the Italian survivors meet a train of fellow Italians. These Italians are “persons of consequence” (289)—Italian officials who were stationed in Bucharest. Many of them married Romanian wives, who are now traveling with them. The Italian parties are enjoined together by the confusing hands of the “inscrutable Soviet bureaucracy” (289).
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
Levi and his fellow prisoners have been freed from Auschwitz but they exist in a vacuum of information, once more battling The Experience of Uncertainty. Given that they cannot speak Russian or Polish, they are forced to sense the imminent end of World War II as a feeling more than an actual historical event. They sense the victory through the reactions of the Russian soldiers and through headlines written in words they cannot read. When the end of the war comes, they feel a tremendous sense of relief rather than joy.
As Italians, their personal relationship to the war is complicated. As Jewish people, the threat posed to them by the Nazi regime was existential. As freed prisoners in the process of repatriation, the formal end of the war moves them a step closer to home. As survivors under the absurd bureaucracy of the Red Army, however, they continue to exist in this state of administrative limbo. Like the end of the war, they have no real idea what is happening other than a general feeling of movement, victory, and success, though their happiness is clouded by their inability to comprehend the exact reality they occupy. The war is over, the Nazis are defeated, and a new era is ushered in, only for the confusion and chaos to remain very much in place.
During this time, Levi contracts a sickness after standing outside in the storm during the celebratory soccer match. This blend of victory celebrations and physical suffering is a symbolic harbinger of what is to come. In spite of the delirium of the victory, the former prisoners of Auschwitz are not home yet, and are still coping with The Impacts of Trauma. Their trauma remains with them in a very real, very literal sense. As well as the psychological effects of the concentration camps, Levi has not been able to recover his physical robustness and well-being. He is vulnerable to illness, a lingering physical effect of the brutalization he suffered at the camps. He survives the pneumonia but the period of sickness reminds him that the victory is only partial and that he will carry the experience of the camps with him for the rest of his life. Even the happiest of celebrations is not immune from these traumatic memories, as a sudden downpour at a sporting celebration can threaten his life.
As part of their journey, Levi and his friends encounter a German woman living in Poland, which deepens the memoir’s exploration of trauma. After they reassure her that they are Italian Jews, she shares her story with them. This woman is Levi’s first post-Auschwitz conversation with a German person. After spending nearly a year in the concentration camps, he has understandably developed a righteous anger toward the German people. Though he speaks the German language, this language is, to Levi, the language of the camps. The German people and German culture are, he believes, inextricably linked to his experiences of the Holocaust. While meeting this woman, however, he realizes that not all Germans were supporters of the Nazis. She lost a husband after he criticized the Nazis. Then, she wrote a letter explicitly criticizing Hitler and bravely attached her identifying information. As a result, she was persecuted and deported by the Nazis.
Levi realizes his view of German people must become more nuanced. He cannot blame all Germans in a blanket fashion for the actions of the Holocaust. Later, as he travels through Germany, he will deliberate as to whether the local people knew the truth about the camps. His righteous fury becomes more profound and more nuanced as he moves further away from the camps and meets those people whom he initially held responsible for his suffering. The meeting with the unnamed woman is a critical point in Levi’s journey toward understanding, even if she complicates rather than clarifies his anger.
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