LA SPECIE UMANA | 1954 | ROBERT ANTELME

La specie umana is a powerful testimonial work by Robert Antelme, recounting his own deportation and experiences in Nazi concentration camps in World War II. The narrative describes the extreme dehumanization endured by political detainees: the forced labor, physical degradation, hunger, marches, and the daily struggle for survival in camps such as Buchenwald and Gandersheim. Antelme reflects not only on bodily suffering but on moral collapse — both personal and collective — and the fragility of human dignity. The book does more than catalogue suffering: it seeks to probe the limits of what it means to remain human under conditions designed to strip one of humanity. It is a work of literary testimony, philosophical reflection, and an unflinching moral inquiry.