Levi, uniquely positioned to describe survival in Auschwitz, states that his reason for writing the autobiography is the moral requirement to bear witness to Nazi atrocities. He states in the preface that he does not intend specifically to catalogue specific crimes or violent acts as many of those have been reported elsewhere. Instead, his purpose in writing is to examine the nature of subjugation and the processes—moral, ethical and intellectual—that survivors used to adapt to the conditions imposed upon them. Thus, the dominant themes of the text include the great insanity of Nazi Germany, the struggle for survival and the process whereby many men's personality were purposefully destroyed long before their anonymous death.