Chapter 12

“ But Lorenzo was a man; his humanity was pure and uncontaminated, he was outside this world of negation. Thanks to Lorenzo, I managed not to forget that I myself was a man.(122)”

We live with people we look up to. When we look at someone who is above us, we want to be like them. We want to be the people they are, so we imitate them. We change ourselves to be more like them, because we think that if we do, we will have what they have. Primo may have no imitated this man Lorenzo, but he did learn something from the experience. He learned that he is still a man. He realized that there are good people left in the world. Levi wasn’t exactly living a Christian life. He would steal, and do about anything to survive. But when he saw Lorenzo, he realized that one could survive in the camp without being corrupted. I’m not sure if Levi was immediately affected, but we do know this. In a couple of days when the Germans leave he would change back into a man with morals. In a way, that’s very similar to what Christ did for us. We were sinning in a world in which nothing mattered. We were dead, we had no real life within us. But God said that he loved the world, and because of that he came down to earth in the form of a child, to save us. He lived a blameless life, one without sin, and set an example for us. When he came he showed how to really live, and we realized we were dead. He brought us back to life and we now realize that we are men, made in the image of God.