Estratti dal libro "Vita e destino"

“Man and Fascism cannot co-exist. If Fascism conquers, man will cease to exist and there will remain only man-like creatures that have undergone an internal transformation. But if man, man who is endowed with reason and kindness, should conquer, then Fascism must perish, and those who have submitted to it will once again become people.”
(p.94)

Then the fence of the camp appeared out of the mist: endless lines of wire strung between reinforced-concrete posts. The wooden barrack-huts stretched out in long broad streets. Their very uniformity was an expression of the inhuman character of this vast camp.

Among a million Russian huts you will never find even two that are exactly the same. Everything that lives is unique. It is unimaginable that two people, or two briar-roses, should be identical… If you attempt to erase the peculiarities and individuality of life by violence, then life itself must suffocate.”
( p.21)

“The Kalmyk steppe seems sad and lifeless when you see it for the first time, when you come to it full of preoccupations, when you watch absent-mindedly as the low hills slowly emerge from the horizon and slowly sink back into it…This Kalmyk steppe…has one strange characteristic: the earth and the sky above have reflected one another for so long that they have finally become indistinguishable, like a husband and wife who have spent their whole lives together. […]

The old man gave a sudden cry, waved his hand in the air and galloped down the hill with extraordinary grace and speed…Darensky watched. One word pounded like blood at his temples: ‘Freedom…freedom…freedom...”
(pp 288-290)

“"When a person dies…the stars have disappeared from the night sky, ; the Milky way has vanished; the sun has gone out; Venus, Mars, and Jupiter have been extinguished; millions of leaves have died; the wind and the oceans have faded away; flowers have lost their color and fragrance' bread has vanished; water has vanished; even the air itself, the sometimes cool, sometimes sultry air, has vanished. The universe inside a person has ceased to exist. This universe is astonishingly similar to the universe that exists outside people. It is astonishingly similar to the universes still reflected within the skulls of millions of living people.

But still more astonishing is that fact that this universe has something in it that distinguished the sound of its ocean, the smell of its flowers, the rustle of its leaves, the hues of its granite and the sadness of its autumn fields both from those of every other universe that exists and ever has existed within people, and from those of the universe that exists eternally outside people. What constitutes freedom, the soul of an individual life, is its uniqueness." “

“The boy's movements filled her with pity. Her feelings toward him were so simple that she no longer needed words and eyes. The half-dead boy was still breathing, but the air he took in only drove life away.[...]

He has taken only a few steps in the world. He had seen the prints of children's bare heels on hot, dusty earth, his mother lived in Moscow.[...]

All this time David was being clasped by strong warm hands. He didn't feel his eyes go dark, his heart become empty, his mind grow dull and blind.

He had been killed; he no longer existed.

Sof’ja Osipovna Levinton felt the boy's body subside in her hands. Once again she had fallen behind him. In mine-shafts where the air becomes poisoned, it is always the little creatures, the birds and mice, that die first. This boy, with his slight, bird-like body, had left before her.

‘I've become a mother,' she thought.

That was her last thought. .

Her heart, through, still had life in it; it still beat, still ached, still felt pity for the dead and the living.".”
(p. 550)

“There were changes in attitude: pride and arrogance softened, there was less boasting, even the most determined optimists had now started to curse the Fuhrer and question his policies.[…]

The torments of fear and hunger, the awareness of impending disaster slowly and gradually humanized men, liberating their core of freedom-”
(p. 725)