Prisoner Number 174517 (If This Is a Man / The Truce - Primo Levi)

Member Name: Mauri

Product:	If This Is a Man / The Truce - Primo Levi
Date:	15/08/02 (475 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: One of the most important books of the 20th century

Disadvantages: none

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 to affect Levi’s life, he had trouble completing his studies such was the climate of prejudice and fear that the Fascists had fermented. Eventually his doctorate in 1941 but things were to get worse. He like many other opponents of the regime joined the Partisans and hid in the mountains to fight a guerrilla campaign against the fascist forces. Before long he was captured and taken to a prisoner’s camp in Fossoli. Levi expected to end stay here until the end of the war but in 1944 the Germans took over the camp and deported all the Jewish prisoners to Auschwitz.

IF THIS IS A MAN

‘If This Is A Man’ the first part in this book begins after Levi arrived at the concentration camp in Auschwitz. It is a detailed personal account of the time Levi survived in the camp. Like all accounts of the holocaust we are presented with some terrifying statistics, out of 650 Jewish prisoners taken there along with Levi, including women and children, 500 died on the way or were murdered on arrival, these were the ones that were either too old, too young or too sick to be ‘useful’ as workers in the camp. Levi was one of the ‘lucky’ ones only 23 came back.

The book comes across as fairly detached description of the horrors of the camp, the words th

at Levi put down on paper seem to be devoid of emotion, the facts are portrayed in a stark clinical fashion and most surprising of all he manages to be non judgemental to the extent that even when he writes about the Germans he avoids expressing the hatred that you imagine he felt. His training as a scientist might go some way to explaining his approach, the ability to record event dispassionately is certainly a pre-requite for good science but as a scientist myself I couldn’t even begin to imagine writing an account in the way Levi has done.

In many ways Levi’s approach is the only way one should explore the holocaust, an emotional account or an over sentimental account would swamp the emotions of the reader and detract from its impact. It is Levi’s gift to chronicle rather than to comment on his experiences, which makes this book such a powerful record of the atrocities of the concentration camp.

There is no plot to mention, the book is a daily, weekly, monthly account of life in the camp and the steady, brutal de-humanising of the prisoners. When Levi arrived at Auschwitz he was sent to work at Monowitz, instead of being sent on to extermination. This camp was on the outskirts of the main complex, 46,000 prisoners were held there and their job was to make Buna a type of rubber as part of the war effort. From the moment he entered the camp he ceased to be Primo Levi and became prisoner Number 174517.

The Nazis understood very well how to strip away all elements of dignity, self worth, and resistance from a person. At the end those who lived ceased to be human in the way we would recognise, they simply survived and their sense of self worth was so defeated that they became little more than zombies.

“For the first time we become aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man...It is not possible to sink lower then this, nor could
it conceivably be so. Nothing
belo
ngs to us anymore; they have taken away our clothes, our shoes, even our hair; if we speak they will not listen to us and if they listen they will not understand. They will even take away our name; and if we want to keep it, we will have to find in ourselves the strength to do so, to manage somehow so that behind the name something of us as we were still remains"

Levi does not show us a group of men bonded together through adversity; proud and unyielding, the systematic torture had pushed most beyond that. Each prisoner was on his own, Levi describes how they would scramble to get old worn out shoes to wear, not having any meant your feet would get cut and infected and that in turn that would mean selection for the gas chamber.

We are told how the most important possessions that a prisoner has are his spoon and bowl, which he constantly has to watch over in case they are stolen by fellow prisoners. There is little comradeship just an instinctive will to survive. Friendships do exist but they are guarded and tend to be born of necessity. Often the communication between the prisoners was problematic Levi himself as an Italian Jew was in the minority and had to rely on his knowledge of German and archaic Hebrew to make himself understood.

Levi divided the prisoners in the camp in to two groups the ‘saved’ or the ‘drowned’, the drowned did not last long. The saved Levi describes as those living in slavery, which would sell out their comrades to gain an advantage, a position of privilege.

One of the saved would then become abusive of his position and would be envied and hated by the rest of the men.

“When he is give the command of a group of unfortunates, with the right of life or dearth over them, he will be cruel and tyrannical, because he will understand that if he is not sufficiently so, someone else, judged more suitable will take over his post."

Levi himself s
urvived bu
t only through the help of a fellow Italian prisoner Lorenzo who shared his food with him and generally took him under his wing. This friendship allowed Levi to remain sane and he says that

“(Lorenzo) reminded me by his presence, by his natural and plain manner of being good, that there still existed a just world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole, not corrupt, not savage, extraneous to hatred and terror....Thanks to Lorenzo, I managed not to forget that I myself was a man"


After more than 20 months and a terrible winter in which Levi almost died, the war finally turned against the Germans. The retreating army took most of the prisoners away and most were never seen again. Levi and a few others remained in the camp by luck more than by design and after a period were they risked death through disease and starvation the Russians forces finally reached and liberated the camp. However this was not the end of Levi’s suffering and it was over a year before he finally returned home.

THE TRUCE

The truce the second part of this book was written in 1963 and describes the long and journey back to Italy through a ruined post-war Russia. Surviving this journey was not easy and Levi whose health had suffered greatly during his stay in the camp took months to slowly recuperate. More importantly his freedom although achieved did not mean much in practical terms since the Russian completely unprepared for the number of liberated prisoners they had to deal with, placed them in detention camp and on occasion forced them to work on local projects. The two types of camp cannot be compared, the Russians provided ample supplies of food, and medical treatment but the organisation was so lacking that many must of wondered if they were ever going to return home.

During this period just after liberation Russia was a country in deep crisis it’s own population had suffered greatly
during the war
and were only marginally better off than the refugees they were supposed to be helping. Many of the ex-prisoners turned to crime and the black market to survive. Levi describes fondly some of the characters that he met along the way and tells us of the many adventure something funny he had.

Like some modern day Odyssey Levi describes his tortuous journey back home to Turin. He does this by focusing on short distinct episodes each focusing on some aspects of the colourful characters he meets along the way. His fellow travellers are periodically transported in cattle trucks form camp to camp with no clear plan by the authorities to get them back home. During the journey some decide to leave and make their own way back to Italy others from all part of war torn Poland and Russia attach themselves to the group along the journey.

We are told of the ‘Greek’ Mordo Nahuma, a Jew from Salonica who was fluent in Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Bulgarian and spoke a little Albanian. The Greek takes Levi with him and teaches him the importance of trading to survive. Anything can be sold for a profit even if sometimes a little deception as to the quality of the goods is needed. Before the war the Greek had been a thief, smuggler, con man and fraudster a perfect background to survive even flourish in post war Russia. We also meet colonel Rovi the self-proclaimed commander of the Italian refugees who surrounds himself with spies and bullies who despite his arrogance was benevolently tolerated in the camp.
Levi because of his scientific background becomes a medical orderly in the camp and there he meet and becomes friends with Marya Fyodorovna and Doctor Danchenko two of the Russians assigned to take care of the camp.


It is important for Levi to have written this book as an addition to ‘If This Is A Man’, since the story of the holocaust did not end with the liberation of the camps. This journey home is a
n important glimpse
of the damage done by war not only to infrastructure building etc, but also to society in general, however it also shows how adaptable and resourceful man can be. It represents a re-awakening for Levi as he begins to reassert his freedom and his humanity.

The title of the book is interesting, in calling it ‘The Truce’ Levi is highlighting the fact that the end of the war did not solve Europe’s problems, the Cold War was about to begin and Levi was very wary that the horrors that he had been through could occur again.

FINAL THOUGHTS

On a Saturday morning in April 1987, Primo Levi took his own life. He had been suffering from depression from before the war and had already attempted suicide when a young man. Despite this like most of his fellow prisoners, he never considered suicide in the camp. This is further proof of the total dehumanising effect of what he went through, even the ultimate choice of whether to live or die was denied him.

Levi’s wartime experiences affected him deeply and throughout his writing career he returned to the war and the holocaust.

When he was asked to explain the lack of expression of hatred or desire for revenge in his books, Levi answered

“My personal temperament is not inclined to hatred. I regard it as bestial, crude and prefer that my actions and thoughts, as far as possible be the product of reason…Even less do I accept hatred as directed collectively at an ethnic group, for example the Germans; if I accepted it, I would feel that I was following the precepts of Nazism, which was founded precisely on national and racial hatred”

Everyone living today should know about the horrors that took place in WW2 in the name of ideology and we who cannot directly remember these events should not imagine that man is not capable of repeating these crimes. Levi is a major chronicler of this period of human history and
if you ever read any acco
unt of the holocaust make sure it this one.


‘If This Is a Man / The Truce’ is available in paperback (400pages) from Amazon.uk priced £7.19



Thank you for reading and rating this opinion.


© Mauri 2002

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