If This Is a Man / The Truce - Primo Levi Reviews

If This A Man is the story of Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who became incarcerated in Auschwitz. Levi provides possibly the calmest and most level headed account of Auschwitz and the Holocaust of any survivor testimony. His account is not fuelled with emotion and over exaggeration more he has sat down and meticulously told his story through pure ...  Read the complete review

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 ...  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 ...  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 ...  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 ...  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 ...  Read the complete review