The Representation of the Concentration Camp Boundary in the Testimonies of Primo Levi and Mario Villani

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the meanings that emerge around the representation of the concentration camp’s boundary in two texts that belong to the testimonial literature about concentration camps: Si esto es un hombre by Primo Levi and Desaparecido, memorias de un cautiverio: Club Atlético, el Banco, el Olimpo, Pozo de Quilmes y ESMA by Mario Villani and Fernando Reati. While in the first text the boundary separating the inside from the outside of the camp is materialized and takes the iconic form of barbed wire, in the second it becomes a motif that prompts reflections questioning its materiality and problematizing the very existence of an outside.