By the end of the book, the Nazis have evacuated all healthy prisoners from the camp, and the Russians are coming to liberate the remaining prisoners. Sounds like a good deal, and a fairly happy ending, right? Uh, wrong. For one thing, most of those "healthy" prisoners who are marched out of Auschwitz "vanish," and Primo doesn't know what happened to them.
And after the Nazis abandon the camp, it's even more of "every man for himself" than it was under the best of circumstances in the nightmarish camp. The prisoners "dragged themselves everywhere on the frozen soil, like an invasion of worms" (17.49). Most of those who remain are seriously ill, and they contaminate the camp because they're not able to control their bodily functions. Frozen bodies pile up outside the huts. The prisoners fight bitterly over what little food and resources remain:
In the kitchen we found two of them squabbling over the last handfuls of putrid potatoes. They had seized each other by their rags, and were fighting with curiously slow and uncertain movements, cursing in Yiddish between their frozen lips. (17.66)
In Primo's medical hut, though, something different is happening. He joins forces with Charles and Arthur, two French political prisoners, and they create a small community to feed each other, keep each other warm, and even extend this help to others. Finally, the Russians arrive and set up a field hospital. Primo makes it out alive.
Again, the ending is understated. Primo and Charles are carrying out the body of their dead bunkmate. They look up. The Russians are there.
"Charles took off his beret. I regretted not having a beret." (17.135)
Imagine the shock, relief, and gratitude Primo must have felt seeing the Russian soldiers. But all he tells us is he wishes he had a beret, so he could take it off (as a sign of respect.)