The Drowned and the Saved is a profound exploration by Primo Levi as he attempts to understand the rationale behind the atrocities of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Bergen-Belsen. Levi dismisses the stereotyped images of brutal Nazi torturers and helpless victims, drawing extensively on his own experiences to delve into the minds and motives of oppressors and oppressed alike.

He describes the difficulty and shame of remembering, the limited forms of collaboration between inmates and SS goalers, the exploitation of useless violence, and the plight of the intellectual. Levi writes about the issue of power, mercy, and guilt, and their effects on the lives of the ordinary people who suffered so incomprehendingly.

Through his writing, Levi warns and reminds us that the unimaginable can happen again, urging us to learn from the past to make sense of the senseless.