cantankerous and solitary philosopher, Jean Améry.

"The appalling episode of the 'Temple of the people', the collective suicide of 900 followers of a mystic-satanic sect, is today still incomprehensible, and perhaps will always be so, if by 'to comprehend' se mean to identify a motive. And anyway, each and every human action contains a kernel of incomprehensibility. If this were not the case, we would be in a position to foresee what our neighbour is going to do. Clearly we cannot do this, and perhaps it is just as well that we cannot. It is particularly difficult to understand why a person kills himself, since generally speaking the suicide himself is not fully aware, or else he supplies both himself and others with motives that are consciously or unconsciously altered.

News of the massacre at Georgetown appeared in the papers alongside another less clamorous item: the suicide of a cantankerous and solitary philosopher, Jean Améry. This event is, in the contrary, absolutely comprehensible, and has much to teach us. (...)

Améry wrote: '"Hear, Israel" is of no interest to me: only "Hear, world", only this warning could I offer with passionate anger'. But also: 'As a jew, I go round the world like a sick man afflicted with one of those illnesses which do not cause great suffering but which lead inevitably to death.' And finally, like an epitaph: '' The man who has been tortured remains tortured ... Whoever has suffered torment will no longer be able to find his way clearly in the world, the abomination of annihilation will never be extinguished. Trust in humanity, already fractured by the first slap in the face and then demolished by torture, can never be regained.'

No, the death of Jean Améry is not a surprise, and it is sad to think that torture, which had disappeared from Europe some centuries ago, made ita reappearance in our century, and is gaining ground in a number of countries, 'for the right reasons', as if suffering deliberately inflicted can give birth to anything good. It is unbearable to think that while the torture Améry suffered weighed down on him right to his death, indeed was for him an interminable death, it is more than likely that his torturers are sitting down in an office or enjoying their retirement. And if they were interrogated (but who his there to interrogate them?) they would give the same old answer with a clear conscience: they were only following ordens."

                   Levi, The Black Hole of Auschwitz, Polity, (tr.) 2005, pp. 48-50.