Lo que resta de Auschwitz

The issue of the historical circumstances—material, technical, bureaucratic, legal, and so forth—surrounding the extermination of the Jews has already been clarified. The situation is vastly different, however, regarding the ethical and political significance of the extermination—or even simply the human understanding of what occurred; that is, ultimately, of its contemporary relevance. Not only is there a lack of any attempt at a comprehensive understanding, but also a lack of insight into the meaning and underlying reasons for the behavior of both perpetrators and victims—whose own words frequently remain an unfathomable enigma, reinforcing the view of those who wish for Auschwitz to remain forever beyond comprehension. The aporia of Auschwitz is the very same aporia found in historical knowledge: the disconnect between facts and truth, between establishing what happened and truly understanding it. As this book will demonstrate, hardly any of the ethical principles our era has deemed valid have withstood the ultimate test—that of an *Ethica more Auschwitz demonstrata*. The *Homo Sacer* philosophical project, developed by Giorgio Agamben over twenty years of reflection and writing, stands as one of the most influential, widely cited, and debated projects of recent decades worldwide. It comprises nine books in which the Italian thinker investigates and analyzes the origins, construction, scope, and applications that constitute the political machinery of power in the West.