have to be told over and over again for this very reason--to make others understand. Primo Levi in his preface to his book Surviving Auschwitz notes this when he says of the story,
Here is the product of a conception of the world carried rigorously to its logical conclusion; so long as the conception subsists, the conclusion remains to threaten us. The story of the death camps should be understood by everyone as a sinister alarm-signal (Levi 9).
Levi also gains control of his own story by telling it. Throughout his book, it is made evident that the prisoners in Auschwitz were not in control of their lives in any way, even to the point where the universe at large seems to have abandoned them: "Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction" (Levi 16). In telling this story, Levi regains the control that was taken from him and challenges those people and elements that betrayed him and others. Telling the story helps heal because it allows the teller to regain a necessary control and to help others understand and so in some way stand with him in opposition to what harmed him.
The Nazis did not come to power in Germany without opposition, and they did not develop their war machine in an atmosphere completely devoid of resistance. There was resistance to the Nazis within German society from a number of people and groups in society, and this resistance was dealt with harshly as the Nazis tried to consolidate their own power and bring everyone into conformity with their program of belligerence toward Germany's neighbors. Yet, the Hitler myth was created and sustained by the Nazi propaganda machine, and it was an effective myth precisely because it built upon att
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