If This Is a Man / The Truce - Primo Levi

On the day I visited Auschwitz in September 2003 the sun was shining, flowers were in full bloom and the birds were singing sweetly overhead; it was difficult to imagine, on the surface, that this was one of the scenes of probably the most appalling event of the twentieth century, Like all the other visitors I made my way around the camp, looking at the exhibits and reading the information panels which explained what had gone on in the various buildings, urging us to think about what it would be like in that room if there were two hundred people sleeping there. It was not until I read "If this is a Man" by Primo Levi that I was really able to ...  Read the complete review

I can’t say I ‘enjoyed’ reading this book and yet it was one of the most moving and important books I have ever read. ABOUT PRIMO LEVI Primo Levi was born in Turin, Italy, on the 31st of July 1919. Levi was part of a long established Jewish Community in Piedmont, Northern Italy. Is early life was uneventful; he was a good student and eventually trained as a chemist. In 1919 another event occurred which would forever affect Primo Levi’s life, the National Socialist Party and Fascist Parties were formed in Germany and Italy respectively. In 1938 several anti-Jewish laws were passed in Italy as they had been in Germany. These began ...  Read the complete review

If this is a man and The Truce are two books combined into one and are the autobiographies of an Italian man named Primo Levi. During the second world war he was interned by his fellow countrymen because he was jewish, and then ultimately shipped off to Auschwitz. The first book tells the story of his life in Italy and the events that led to the jewish community in his area being named and then shipped 'east'. His account of his time in Auschwitz is moving and poignant. It is truly one of the best books that I have read on the holocaust as it is a personal and touching account of one man's survival in a situation that is incomprehendible ...  Read the complete review

Primo Levi's greatest work, If This is a Man is more than just 'the story of someone in a concentration camp.' (aka "lager" in most editions, a peculiar case of non-translation if ever I saw one). Well, on first glance, this book is exactly that, an account of a man's survival in a concentration camp, but on deeper examination, it is so much more. His tale revolves around a theme, this being his personal rebellion against the Nazis. Not by taking up weapons, but by demanding of himself that he remain a human - a man - in conditions designed to reduce him to the status of untermenschen (subhuman) that the Nazis had given him as ...  Read the complete review

If you only ever read one book about the Holocaust make it this one. It is an eyewitness account by Primo Levi, an Italian Jewish chemist, one of the few survivors of the Nazi death camps. ‘If This Is A Man’ was written in 1947, shortly after his liberation and return home. Born in Turin Primo Levi was working in Milan when the Nazis arrived in 1942. He joined a group of resistance fighters and was captured by the militia in 1943. From there he was sent to Monowitz, part of the Auschwitz concentration camp. After a year, when the Nazis war was clearly lost and their army was in retreat, the surviving prisoners were removed and marched to ...  Read the complete review