| Product: |
If This Is a Man / The Truce - Primo Levi |
| Date: |
12/04/06 (762 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: An amazing primary source, great writing
Disadvantages: None
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 imagine what it must have been like to have been imprisoned somewhere like Auschwitz; Levi's account of the eleven months he spent as a prisoner describe not only day to day life in the camps, but goes some way to explaining what it does to people forced to live under those conditions. No other book I have read on the subject has come as close as this to helping people understand what kind of de-humanising event the holocaust was.
In this edition "If This is a Man" is joined with "The Truce", Levi's account of the ten months he spent making his way back to his hometown of Turin after the camp was liberated by the Russians. It is lighter in tone than "If this is a Man" but it also offers an extraordinary insight into the lives of people who were displaced during the Second World War.
The most remarkable thing about the two works, though, is that they were published at all. Primo Levi suffered from depression years before he was taken prisoner; that someone with his history of poor mental health should survive the brutal conditions of a concentration camp at all is significant. He never had any intention of publishing an account of life in the camps but he was so enraged by the revisionist historians take on the holocaust (which amounted to denial in some cases) that he decided to give his account so that people could be under no doubt as to the horrors committed by the Nazis.
When the Russians drew close to Auschwitz the Nazis fled, taking with them all but the most seriously ill prisoners. Primo Levi was one of those too ill to leave. Ironically, most of those who fled did not survive, dying of exposure and starvation. Levi, who had been considered too close to death to leave, found it was the reason for his survival.
IF THIS IS A MAN
Although Jewish, Primo Levi was not transported to the camps until 1944. He had been held in an Italian camp near Modena and had expected to see out the war there. However, when the Germans took over the camps in 1944 they moved the prisoners on the camps in eastern Germany and Poland. Two things worked in Levi's favour. One was that at this late stage in the war, the camps were no longer the places of instant death they had been, say, a year before. Furthermore, when it was discovered that he was a qualified chemist, he was moved to Monovitz, a nearby work camp where he would be involved in the production of "Buna", a substitute for rubber.
Although the prisoners working at Monovitz may have considered themselves luckier than those in the deathcamps, conditions were hardly better. Levi says that the two most important possessions any prisoner owned were his bowl and his spoon - without them one could not eat since the watery soup would only be dispensed to those with the correct utensils.
He describes how the watery soup made prisoners want to go to the toilet during the night and how no body wanted to empty the bucket during the night because there was only one pair of wooden shoes between all the men in a hut. Chances were you'd spill the contents over your feet while taking the bucket to be emptied and since the men slept head to toe your neighbour wouldn't be pleased when you returned.
Levi is more concerned with showing what it was like in the camps than with condemnation of the captors. The people he writes of are more likely to be his fellow prisoners than the guards. But, pointedly, while Levi shows how people will support each other in terrible times, the Nazis were able to degrade there prisoners even further by making them turn against each other. As an intellectual, Levi did not especially observe Jewish customs; however, the regressive and draconian laws which were introduced gradually leading up to the war made Levi "feel Jewish" and intensified his anger. By giving one small privilege to a prisoner, Levi saw how the Nazis could get a Jew to degrade other Jews. This was like no other persecution; the object of the Nazis was not merely to exterminate Jewish people but to degrade a whole race first; taking their gold fillings, using their hair to make into fabrics, even using the ashes from cremated bodies to make footpaths. Of the 650 Jewish prisoners moved from Modena in 1944, only 20 survived the war.
THE TRUCE
It is significant that Levi chose to call this work "The Truce"; he may have a number of ideas in mind when he did so. My own feeling is that the title reflects how quickly people forget; that mankind has not really learnt from the holocaust; that the promises that what happened to the Jews must not happen again were hollow ones.
It could also signify the period of uncertainty for those liberated from the camps who were told they were free but who could not get home because of a lack of cooperation between the Allies and the bumbling bureaucracy of the Russians who were controlling moverment around that part of Europe.
Primo Levi was liberated from Auschwitz in January 1945 but he did not arrive home in Turin until October that year. In the intervening months he travelled through Russia, Switzerland, Hungary and several other European countries as he tried to get back home. The reason for this prolonged trip was that people did not have the papers which would have enabled easy crossing of borders. Furthermore, the organisations which were trying to help people return home were swamped with refugees, many of them too ill to travel immediately. Levi was initally sent to Russia where he was told there was a holding camp from where he would be repatriated. When it became clear that this would take some time, he volunteered to work as a medical orderly in the holding camp.
Slowly, Levi made the journey home, doing whatever he needed to survive along the way. It is a story of hardship but a very different one from "If This is a Man"; once again Levi describes the people he meets and how imprisonment has affected them as well showing how they were slowly regaining " a joy in living which Auschwitz had extinguished".
My only disppointment with the two works is that "The Truce" ends very abruptly; I was disppointed not to learn more about Levi's actual homecoming and what had happened to his family in the intervening years.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
These works by Primo Levi are easy to read and while the subject is challenging, the writing style is not. Levi writes with an economic style which conveys the horror of the camps without using graphic depictions of violence. As a result, the works are accessible to a wide range of readers from historians of the period to young people who ought to read the works at school. (I would suggest that thirteen might be a suitable age to read this book.) The prose is flowing and gentle and yet still manages to convey the evils of Auschwitz. His ability to evoke detailed scenes deserves praise.
The fact that Levi writes in a dispassionate way (perhaps due his background as a scientist) invites you to think about major questions historians have regularly asked about the subject. The edition I read includes a section in which Primo Levi answers some of the questions people have have asked him in letters and provide excellent opportunity for discussion - "Do you hate Germans?" "Why did the Jews not fight back?". Levi answers them frankly and his answers shed a certain amount of light on the ways people had for coping with life in the camps.
Ultimately, this is not a book about the Nazis or Jews or the concentration camps. It is a comment on humanity and suggestion for how men should live. I know it is a book I can go back to and feel as inspired as the first time I read it.
As a primary source of historical information, this is surely one of the most important of the twentieth century. If you read only one book about the holocaust, it should be this.
Published by Abacus, 398 pages
Available online from £4.00 through the usual e-retailers
Summary: THE book to read on the holocaust
|
|
