Primo Levi (1919-1987) does not view his experience in the Nazi camps as an accident of history but as a paradigmatic event that allows us to perceive how far a human being can go in the role of perpetrator or victim.

What are the structures of the hierarchy of an authoritarian system, and what are the techniques of annihilating a person's identity? What kind of beings inhabit the "gray area" of collaboration? How is a monster constructed? Was it possible to understand the logic of the extermination machine from the inside? Was rebellion possible?

Furthermore: how does the memory of an extreme experience function? Primo Levi does not limit himself to describing those aspects of the concentration camps that have remained dark until today, but he takes stock to fight against the familiarity and acceptance of the humiliation of human dignity.

The author provides his answers in this last book of his about the Nazi camps, which, shortly before his death, concludes the trilogy that began with "If This Is a Man" (1946 - ed. Agra, 1997) and "The Truce" (1963).

"Those Who Sank and Those Who Were Saved is an explosion, and indeed a volcanic one, precisely because it is unexpected... Gradually, cumulatively, from one muffled roar to another, it leads to revelation, to exposure - one can follow the scorching that accompanies the melting." New Republic