Status
Checked out
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
Rīga : Neputns, [2019]
Description
[This is the author's] sequel to his ... memoir of the Holocaust, Survival in Auschwitz. The inspiring story of [the author's] liberation from the German death camp in January 1945 by the Red Army, it tells of his strange and eventful journey home to Italy by way of the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Romania. [The author's] railway travels take him through bombed-out cities and transit camps, and with keen insight he describes the former prisoners and Russian soldiers he encounters along the way.-Back cover.
User reviews
LibraryThing member ctpress
This is the second book in Primo Levi’s autobiography about Auschwitz and the aftermath of the war. Also goes by the title “The Truce”, in Danish "Tøbruddet".
As the first one this is no doubt a solid five star read. Primo Levi recounts the time just after Auschwitz when jews, refugees and
He’s such a good storyteller, vivid descriptions of so many people - some showing forth trumendous strength and resilience, others caring and loving, others cruel and vicious. It’s also in places very funny in all the absurd circumstances they happen to find themselves in - so many strange characters and events that you shake your head in disbelief.
As the first one this is no doubt a solid five star read. Primo Levi recounts the time just after Auschwitz when jews, refugees and
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other war victims are trying to get home. Everything is chaos, people are starving and sick and many dies in interim camps - Primo Levi is relocated several times to different camps, trying to survive. He’s such a good storyteller, vivid descriptions of so many people - some showing forth trumendous strength and resilience, others caring and loving, others cruel and vicious. It’s also in places very funny in all the absurd circumstances they happen to find themselves in - so many strange characters and events that you shake your head in disbelief.
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LibraryThing member Miguelnunonave
Wonderful book about human resourcefulness against extreme adversity. Auto-biographical. Subtle humour.
LibraryThing member SoulFlower1981
One of the harder to get through books that I have read recently because Levi has a way of writing in only the exact necessary details of his experiences. This volume deals with his accounts of surviving Auschwitz and what happened to him immediately following it. This book will change your
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perception of what you think happened right after because most of us would consider that people in the concentration camps would just go back home, but this book tells you an entirely different story. If you want to become educated on the real world after the Holocaust you must spend the time to read this book. Show Less
LibraryThing member overthemoon
Survival, not of the fittest, but of the ones with the most wits about them. Very harrowing, though not as grim as If this is a man... and compelling reading. Lucid style, no whining, no complaining, about the interminable hiatus between the liberation from Auschwitz and the return to Turin, via
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the "Old Roads" somewhere in the Russian countryside at the end of a railway track. Of the 605 who were in Levi's group when he was interned, only 3 survived. I think Levi must have been a quiet man, but he should be listened to. Show Less
LibraryThing member TheWasp
Unlike If This is a Man, which is sad and serious, The Truce, which relates Primo Levi's circuitous journey home after his concentration camp survival, if full of expectation and hope.
LibraryThing member jonfaith
Depsite the political and philosophical penumbra, I regard this account as a travel narrative. The baggage involved is ineffable. Despite Adorno, this works and it projects.
LibraryThing member IonaS
This is an account of the author’s return home to Italy following his imprisonment in Auschwitz.
It is wonderfully written and extremely readable. But it does not provide any information we really feel we need to know as did Survival in Auschwitz.
We are told of the rescue from the camp by the
Primo, being ill, was delegated to an Infectious Ward. He ended up in a small ward with only twenty bunks.
There were a few desperate cases, including an unknown skeleton-like little man whose muscles were horriblly contracted and whom the nurses did what they could with.
There was a “child of death” who looked about three years old who could not speak and had no name – they called him Hurbinek.
He was paralyzed from the waist down, with atrophied legs as thin as sticks. His eyes “flashed terribly alive, full of demand and assertion”.
Hanek, a robust Hungarian boy of fifteen, spent half his day beside Hurbinek’s pallet, Hanek brought him food, adjusted his blankets, cleaned him skilfully and spoke to him, in Hungarian, of course.
Hurbinek died in March, 1945.
Hanek came from Transsylvania; he and his whole family had been captured and deported to Auschwitz.
There were several children. One, Peter Pavel, was five years old. He was a beautiful, blond, robust child. He spoke to nobody and needed nobody.
There was Kleine Kapura, twelve years old. Enormously long arms and legs stuck out from his squat, short body.
He had been the attendant of the “Lager-Kapo”.
After a few days he began to speak.
“He shouted imperious commands in German to a group of non-existent slaves.”
“Get up, swine --- Make your beds, quickly; clean your shoes. All in line, lice inspection, feet inspection!”
Primo describes in detail in his wonderful prose all the characters he encounters.
Eventually, he gets into a Russian transport convoy heading towards a “mysterious” transit camp. He meets a Greek, Mordo Nahun, who becomes a sort of friend,
Primo passes through several camps together with many others.
In one town, the Polish Red Cross had established a marvelous field-kitchen and served a substantial hot soup at all hours.
Primo meets people of various nationalities with whom he communicates in a mixture of languages.
He travels by various trains, though often he does not know for certain where they are heading, if at all in the right direction.
I found the book to be extremely readable but not indispensable or important.
It is wonderfully written and extremely readable. But it does not provide any information we really feel we need to know as did Survival in Auschwitz.
We are told of the rescue from the camp by the
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Russians and their necessary and thorough bathing by the Russian nurses. Primo, being ill, was delegated to an Infectious Ward. He ended up in a small ward with only twenty bunks.
There were a few desperate cases, including an unknown skeleton-like little man whose muscles were horriblly contracted and whom the nurses did what they could with.
There was a “child of death” who looked about three years old who could not speak and had no name – they called him Hurbinek.
He was paralyzed from the waist down, with atrophied legs as thin as sticks. His eyes “flashed terribly alive, full of demand and assertion”.
Hanek, a robust Hungarian boy of fifteen, spent half his day beside Hurbinek’s pallet, Hanek brought him food, adjusted his blankets, cleaned him skilfully and spoke to him, in Hungarian, of course.
Hurbinek died in March, 1945.
Hanek came from Transsylvania; he and his whole family had been captured and deported to Auschwitz.
There were several children. One, Peter Pavel, was five years old. He was a beautiful, blond, robust child. He spoke to nobody and needed nobody.
There was Kleine Kapura, twelve years old. Enormously long arms and legs stuck out from his squat, short body.
He had been the attendant of the “Lager-Kapo”.
After a few days he began to speak.
“He shouted imperious commands in German to a group of non-existent slaves.”
“Get up, swine --- Make your beds, quickly; clean your shoes. All in line, lice inspection, feet inspection!”
Primo describes in detail in his wonderful prose all the characters he encounters.
Eventually, he gets into a Russian transport convoy heading towards a “mysterious” transit camp. He meets a Greek, Mordo Nahun, who becomes a sort of friend,
Primo passes through several camps together with many others.
In one town, the Polish Red Cross had established a marvelous field-kitchen and served a substantial hot soup at all hours.
Primo meets people of various nationalities with whom he communicates in a mixture of languages.
He travels by various trains, though often he does not know for certain where they are heading, if at all in the right direction.
I found the book to be extremely readable but not indispensable or important.
Show Less
Subjects
Awards
John Florio Prize for Italian Translation (Winner — 1966)
Premio Campiello (Winner — 1963)
Language
Original language
Italian
Original publication date
1963
Physical description
188 p.; 22 cm
Pages
188
ISBN
9789934565762
Local notes
Neputna esejas