Status
Available
Series
Collection
Publication
New York [u.a.] : Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Description
In 1943, Primo Levi, a 25-year-old chemist and "Italian citizen of Jewish race," was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. This is Levi's classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit, Survival in Auschwitz remains a lasting testament to the indestructibility of the human spirit. Included in this new edition is an illuminating conversation between Philip Roth and Primo Levi never before published in book form.--From publisher description.
User reviews
LibraryThing member ctpress
The italien jew Primo Levi was a prisoner in Auschwitz from february 1944 until the end of the war when the camp was liberated by the Russian Army.
Together with Night by Elie Wiesel this is an invaluable account of the Nazi's attrocities. Brutally honest and shocking.
What constitute a man? When he
Levi divides the prisoners in two groups. The Drowned and the Saved. He is in group one - the Saved - those who are able to find ways to cheat, steal, make trades and bargain with anything - they rise above the majority of the prisoners. Then there's the Drowned, the muselmen, who have given up all hope and have lapsed into a state of despairing apathy.
“One knows that they are only here on a visit, that in a few weeks, nothing will remain of them but a handful of ashes in some near-by field and crossed out number on a register…they suffer and drag themselves along in an opaque intimate solitude, and in solitude they die and disappear, without leaving a trace in anyone’s memory.”
Levi is able to survive - but also because of the friendship with Alberto and the extraordinary kindness of Lorenzo - two other prisoners. There's great humanity here. And then his luck: Getting to work as a chemist in the camps laboratory thus escaping the "selections" for the gas chambers.
I can't recommend this book enough. If you have the stomach for it. Incredible that it is written only two years after the war.
Together with Night by Elie Wiesel this is an invaluable account of the Nazi's attrocities. Brutally honest and shocking.
What constitute a man? When he
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is stripped of everything and reduced to mere survival instincts - is he a man anymore or just a brute beast? This is the devastating realisation by Levi - what he has become, his humanity is buried - by the brutality of the SS and by the prisoners themselves as they struggle to survive. What is right and wrong? It's every man for himself - forget the sick and weak - take care of yourself. Don't trust anyone. Don't expect anything. Don't hope for anything. Levi divides the prisoners in two groups. The Drowned and the Saved. He is in group one - the Saved - those who are able to find ways to cheat, steal, make trades and bargain with anything - they rise above the majority of the prisoners. Then there's the Drowned, the muselmen, who have given up all hope and have lapsed into a state of despairing apathy.
“One knows that they are only here on a visit, that in a few weeks, nothing will remain of them but a handful of ashes in some near-by field and crossed out number on a register…they suffer and drag themselves along in an opaque intimate solitude, and in solitude they die and disappear, without leaving a trace in anyone’s memory.”
Levi is able to survive - but also because of the friendship with Alberto and the extraordinary kindness of Lorenzo - two other prisoners. There's great humanity here. And then his luck: Getting to work as a chemist in the camps laboratory thus escaping the "selections" for the gas chambers.
I can't recommend this book enough. If you have the stomach for it. Incredible that it is written only two years after the war.
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LibraryThing member Lunarreader
What a story. Horror. Devastating. I've been several times close to crying.
Levi tells about his stay in Auschwitz. The humiliations, the random killings, the for no reason random violence, beyond human and not being considered a human being anymore.
How is it possible that people do this to one
Levi describes as if he has already left his own body, his own mind, the daily life in the camp. The work, the relationships, the mind numbing routines, the complete approach to make you feel less than nothing.
My thoughts are very basic after reading this book: how can one live on? How could the SS even catch sleep? How could Levi find any sense of being alive to hang on, in the camp but also afterwards? These mysteries will for ever be in my head.
The novel is a collection of short descriptions and they are written, not just like a journalist telling what happened, but with a real sense for litterature. Some passages are, hard to imagine, poetic. Levi must have been a true intellectual to be able to reflect so soon after this events, so calmly, so reflective, so ... pure.
A must read in these times where civilisation is again challenged by another kind of doctrine, a religious one this time but equivalent in its brutality, its atrocity and most of all senselessness
Levi tells about his stay in Auschwitz. The humiliations, the random killings, the for no reason random violence, beyond human and not being considered a human being anymore.
How is it possible that people do this to one
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another? How much hate can there be? And for what good reason? Levi describes as if he has already left his own body, his own mind, the daily life in the camp. The work, the relationships, the mind numbing routines, the complete approach to make you feel less than nothing.
My thoughts are very basic after reading this book: how can one live on? How could the SS even catch sleep? How could Levi find any sense of being alive to hang on, in the camp but also afterwards? These mysteries will for ever be in my head.
The novel is a collection of short descriptions and they are written, not just like a journalist telling what happened, but with a real sense for litterature. Some passages are, hard to imagine, poetic. Levi must have been a true intellectual to be able to reflect so soon after this events, so calmly, so reflective, so ... pure.
A must read in these times where civilisation is again challenged by another kind of doctrine, a religious one this time but equivalent in its brutality, its atrocity and most of all senselessness
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LibraryThing member Katie_H
I have read quite a few Holocaust memoirs, and this wasn't the best of them. It's tricky criticizing a book like this without sounding like I am criticizing the author's experiences (I'm not). Despite being a short text, it took awhile to get through. I really wanted to be moved by Levi's
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experiences, but I wasn't, mainly because his style of narration was extremely clinical, lacking any emotion. It is possible that the heart of the novel was lost during translation, but I'm skeptical. The approach that the author took was a day in the life of an Auschwitz inmate: meals, work assignments, sleeping arrangements, business on the inside, theft, illness, and finally, freedom. Based on my prior knowledge of Auschwitz, I know that his experience was horrific, but unfortunately his suffering did not come through in the book. As strange as it may sound, I wanted to be drawn into Levi's pain, and when I wasn't, I was disappointed. The book did provide a unique insight into life in the prison camp that is not seen in other memoirs, so for that, it can't be completely discounted. If you've never read a Holocaust memoir before, don't choose this one, try Weisel's "Night" instead. Show Less
LibraryThing member BenjaminHahn
As much as a holocaust memoir can be, this was a refreshing take on a very complicated experience. The author, Primo Levi, wrote this recently after his experience. Knowing that, plus his background as an Italian, non practicing Jew, atheist, makes this a unique take on Auschwitz. Many versions of
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this book is combined with a follow up book, The Truce, but this Folio Society edition is just a stand alone. However, there is an epilogue featuring Primo's answers to the most common questions he often received when delivering lectures or talks on this subject in the 60's and 70's. These questions and his responses are almost as illuminating as the memoir, for they get at the real heart of the important ethical questions raised by the advent of the WWII holocaust. Primo focuses many of his more ruminative chapters on the part of the nature of human kind that allows something like the holocaust to take place. What conditions must be present for such a thing to occur? His writings on these questions seemed to me to be the most fascinating because I felt there were many parallels that could be drawn to current situations around the world. I would like to believe that something as horrible as mass genocide could never happen in the United States given our current form of representative government, but I'm not so sure anymore. Read this memoir, then immediately watch FOX news for 1 hour and listen to the paranoia, hate, and intolerance being dished out and gobbled up. It gave me a few chills. I recommend this book for anyone interested in holocaust memoirs, but some may be put off by Primo's blunt detached style of writing. For me, this made the details of his experience that much more poignant. It was also interesting to read this paired with Maus I and II by Spiegelmen. Show Less
LibraryThing member satsche
In my opinion one of the best books about the Holocaust.
Primo Levi was a chemist and spent a year in Auschwitz. Physically he survived, but mentally he didn't. The ever recurring nightmares and the presence of his own past in Auschwitz leads to Levis suicide in 1987. So, in the end the Nazis killed
Primo Levi was born in 1919 and was deported to Auschwitz at the age of 24. Afore he was a member of the resistance and very erudite. During the time at the concentration camp he tried to remember some parts of some great works like "Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri, just to keep himself alive and to know he's still a human.
'Cause who's a human under this conditions? Is he a human, who's waiting for his neighbour to die, just to get some piece of bread of him? And the one who's mumbling "aye" while he's dying: wasn't his personhood already took away?
Levi was writing very to the point. About what was happening to him and the other fellow sufferers in Auschwitz, about the relationships of one arrestee to another - and he was able to generate a panorama of life in Auschwitz. Of cause, what he describes is just a little piece of all the incomprehensible crimes of the gigantic killing machinery, but every reader will know: imaginable there's no kind of absolution.
Primo Levi was a chemist and spent a year in Auschwitz. Physically he survived, but mentally he didn't. The ever recurring nightmares and the presence of his own past in Auschwitz leads to Levis suicide in 1987. So, in the end the Nazis killed
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him after all.Primo Levi was born in 1919 and was deported to Auschwitz at the age of 24. Afore he was a member of the resistance and very erudite. During the time at the concentration camp he tried to remember some parts of some great works like "Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri, just to keep himself alive and to know he's still a human.
'Cause who's a human under this conditions? Is he a human, who's waiting for his neighbour to die, just to get some piece of bread of him? And the one who's mumbling "aye" while he's dying: wasn't his personhood already took away?
Levi was writing very to the point. About what was happening to him and the other fellow sufferers in Auschwitz, about the relationships of one arrestee to another - and he was able to generate a panorama of life in Auschwitz. Of cause, what he describes is just a little piece of all the incomprehensible crimes of the gigantic killing machinery, but every reader will know: imaginable there's no kind of absolution.
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LibraryThing member Britt84
Very impressive; good read for anybody who wants to know more about what happened in Auschwitz, how the people lived there. Stunning and beautifully written.
LibraryThing member multifaceted
When I read “Survival in Auschwitz”, I really did like it, though not in the usual kind of way, where you start crying because it rattles your emotions so entirely (ok, so maybe that’s just *my* usual reaction to books I love, haha). It does rattle your emotions, but in a much more strange
Then I started thinking about it the one day, and a scene from the book came flooding back to me. In it, Levi is walking under surveillance of a guard; the guard dirties his hands and, without thinking much of it at all, uses Levi as a rag on which he can clean himself. It just struck me as something so cruel and horrible, although the act isn’t really described as being violent. It was as if Levi, the prisoner, wasn’t even human—as if he wasn’t alive at all—like he was just a rag, something disposable with which you can clean your hands on and then rid yourself of.
This may not be the most exemplary detail of how dehumanizing life was described as being for the prisoners in Auschwitz in this book (Levi, of course, goes over this theme many times, along with showing how many struggled to stay human in the midst of it all), but it is the one that affected me the most. It opened my eyes in a way none of the other Holocaust stories, diaries and essays I’ve read have done before. Primo Levi doesn’t just describe his actions and his luck at survival (or lack thereof) like most Holocaust books do—he also gives a glimpse into the complex relationship between the prisoners and their captives, as well as the equally complicated relationship between prisoners themselves.
For reasons such as these, this novel is also much better, in a sense, than many of the other Holocaust works I have read.
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(and perhaps complex) way. But, for a while after reading this book, I didn’t think about it, and hence forgot some of the information. Then I started thinking about it the one day, and a scene from the book came flooding back to me. In it, Levi is walking under surveillance of a guard; the guard dirties his hands and, without thinking much of it at all, uses Levi as a rag on which he can clean himself. It just struck me as something so cruel and horrible, although the act isn’t really described as being violent. It was as if Levi, the prisoner, wasn’t even human—as if he wasn’t alive at all—like he was just a rag, something disposable with which you can clean your hands on and then rid yourself of.
This may not be the most exemplary detail of how dehumanizing life was described as being for the prisoners in Auschwitz in this book (Levi, of course, goes over this theme many times, along with showing how many struggled to stay human in the midst of it all), but it is the one that affected me the most. It opened my eyes in a way none of the other Holocaust stories, diaries and essays I’ve read have done before. Primo Levi doesn’t just describe his actions and his luck at survival (or lack thereof) like most Holocaust books do—he also gives a glimpse into the complex relationship between the prisoners and their captives, as well as the equally complicated relationship between prisoners themselves.
For reasons such as these, this novel is also much better, in a sense, than many of the other Holocaust works I have read.
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LibraryThing member rslynch
This book has such a sense of beauty, pain, and attention to detail. In some ways I wish I could wipe these experiences from survivors' minds and replace it with something pleasant or benign. Then i read stories like this and realize how much of their lives sprung from their experience, which
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shaped every thing that came after and shaded all that came before. I wish more people would read these accounts and know the truth of the human experience and the triumph of spirit. Show Less
LibraryThing member tatasmagik
Tremendously moving, heart-breaking, sobering and inspiring. A well-written account of one man's survival of the absolute bottom of humanity. Difficult to read at times.
LibraryThing member Angelic55blonde
This is a small yet powerful book that is a great addition to the Holocaust studies. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone!
LibraryThing member michaelbartley
A dark book about living and surviving in Auschwitz. Levi takes you from the moment he is captured to his last day. He struggles not only to live but also to remain human. This is a very powerful book
LibraryThing member TomMcGreevy
Fundamentally chilling. A memoir of inhumanity exercised deliberately as nazi state policy. Everyone is damned even the survivors. As far as history goes this is an important book that should be placed on curricula of 20th century history. It is a testimonial narrative and as such warrants
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attention. Show Less
LibraryThing member lynneinfla
I read this book after a visit to Auschwitz. What an amazing story of what it took to survive that death factory! It is extremely well-written and easy to read, although "easy to read" is probably an inappropriate term for such a disturbing subject. Learning more about what happened in the Nazi
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death camps is important for everyone, and this book is an excellent window on life in Auschwitz. Show Less
LibraryThing member marilib
best known for If This Is a Man, published in the U.S. as Survival in Auschwitz
LibraryThing member agnesmack
This was one of the most difficult books I've ever read. Not in it's word usage or general prose style, but reading about this man's experience in Auschwitz and knowing that it was real . . . I had a really hard time getting through it.
This was the story of Primo Levi, a man who lived in Auschwitz
I flagged so much of this book. I both want everyone I know to read this book immediately, and also for no one I know to ever read this book. I am going to just pick a passage at random because I can't go through and read everything I've marked. It's too much and it makes me too sad.
"For human nature is such that grief and pain - even simultaneously suffered - do not add up as a whole in our consciousness, but hide, the lesser behind the greater, according to a definite law of perspective. It is providential and is our means of surviving in the camp. And this is the reason why so often in free life one hears it said that man is never content. In fact it is not a question of human incapacity for a state of absolute happiness, but o an ever-insufficient knowledge of the complex nature of the state of unhappiness; so that the single name of the major cause is given to all its causes, which are composite and set out in an order of urgency. And if the most immediate cause of stress comes to an end, you are grievously amazed to see that another lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others.
...
At sunset, the siren of the Feierabend sounds, the end of work; and as we are all satiated, at least for a few hours, no quarrels arise, we feel good, the Kapo feels no urge to hit us, and we are able to think of our mothers and wives, which usually does not happen. For a few hours, we can be unhappy in the manner of free men."
* * * *
It was affecting, moving and devastating. I don't know what else to say about it.
This was the story of Primo Levi, a man who lived in Auschwitz
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and managed to survive. As I was reading this, I kept thinking about how strange the human's want to survive is. If I were in his position, I am not sure that I would continue fighting. I'm not sure I could keep working 18 hours a day, eating one scrap of bread, 1/2 a pint of soup and sleeping on the ground. I'm not sure I would prefer being beaten to being killed. I think I'd prefer they just shoot me. Primo, on the other hand, never gives up - though he does lose hope.I flagged so much of this book. I both want everyone I know to read this book immediately, and also for no one I know to ever read this book. I am going to just pick a passage at random because I can't go through and read everything I've marked. It's too much and it makes me too sad.
"For human nature is such that grief and pain - even simultaneously suffered - do not add up as a whole in our consciousness, but hide, the lesser behind the greater, according to a definite law of perspective. It is providential and is our means of surviving in the camp. And this is the reason why so often in free life one hears it said that man is never content. In fact it is not a question of human incapacity for a state of absolute happiness, but o an ever-insufficient knowledge of the complex nature of the state of unhappiness; so that the single name of the major cause is given to all its causes, which are composite and set out in an order of urgency. And if the most immediate cause of stress comes to an end, you are grievously amazed to see that another lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others.
...
At sunset, the siren of the Feierabend sounds, the end of work; and as we are all satiated, at least for a few hours, no quarrels arise, we feel good, the Kapo feels no urge to hit us, and we are able to think of our mothers and wives, which usually does not happen. For a few hours, we can be unhappy in the manner of free men."
* * * *
It was affecting, moving and devastating. I don't know what else to say about it.
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LibraryThing member ARICANA
In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and "Italian citizen of Jewish race," was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. Survival in Auschwitz is Levi's classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic
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cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit, Survival in Auschwitz remains a lasting testament to the indestructibility of the human spirit. Show Less
LibraryThing member cenneidigh
Wow, what a story. This is not about the Germans and much as it is about the way the Jews treated each other. Very sad and well written.
LibraryThing member Tpoi
Chemical engineer and accidental tourist who would bear witness to the fascism and Auschwitz with clarity, metaphor, and deliberate realism.
LibraryThing member wordseeker
This book is about the author's experience in auschwitz. it is written as if he'd wrote it there. it has no refences on what happened on the out side word, while he was held prisoner, no important events or dates. he was able to transmite the sence of loneliness and despere of a man that is not
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certain of what the future departs for him or if he even has one. it is a book every one should read. we read so much about what happened in these fields and in war world two and what they'd suffer whitout really imagine what these prisoners thougth and did to survive. we all know the awful things nazis did, and think about the prisoners, but this author is capable to get us inside his mind, to really undestand the complexity of the situation, so we become not just whitnesses, but the main character. and no matter what you may think, it is not a depressive story; it is about a man that survived and struguled to stay focus in the middle of madness. Show Less
LibraryThing member overthemoon
the book I think everyone should read.
LibraryThing member booklove2
An alternate title of this is 'If This Is A Man' which is on the '1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die' list. That makes this one of the very few non-fiction books on the list. I don't know why they'd only include a couple. I think they should limit the list to fiction, but this one is very
Primo Levi was a Jewish man living in Italy that was sent to Auschwitz. He says he writes things in order of urgency, the order details need to go on the page. But Levi's way of describing things is so perfect and heartbreaking. It seems simple yet calculated, and says exactly enough. A reoccurring dream Levi had, that he found others in the camp also had, was that he would try to tell people his story, even his own sister, and no one would listen. They would walk away. Because of this dream, I can imagine him composing the words in his head while he was in the camps, which would be a good reason to survive the horrors of the Holocaust: to tell others your story and warn them of what could one day happen again. So I think this was an important book for Levi to write and also an important book for anyone to read. One of the essential books on the Holocaust.
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worthy of being on it anyway. Primo Levi was a Jewish man living in Italy that was sent to Auschwitz. He says he writes things in order of urgency, the order details need to go on the page. But Levi's way of describing things is so perfect and heartbreaking. It seems simple yet calculated, and says exactly enough. A reoccurring dream Levi had, that he found others in the camp also had, was that he would try to tell people his story, even his own sister, and no one would listen. They would walk away. Because of this dream, I can imagine him composing the words in his head while he was in the camps, which would be a good reason to survive the horrors of the Holocaust: to tell others your story and warn them of what could one day happen again. So I think this was an important book for Levi to write and also an important book for anyone to read. One of the essential books on the Holocaust.
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LibraryThing member donttalktofreaks
Deeply moving and disturbing story of a man's time at the dreaded death camp.
LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom
Don't think that any of Primo Levi's books are just your run of the mill (if there are such things) holocaust stories. He lived it. Here he relates what survival in a concentration camp means, and what those who have been reduced to subhumans must do simply in order to survive. It is one of Levi's
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best. Show Less
LibraryThing member IonaS
This is an account of the author’s sojourn in Auschwitz.
It is wonderfully written but horrifying.
Levi was 24 when he was captured by the Fascist Militia.
The men and women are divided. The men never see tthe women again. The men are divided into fit and unfit. They have a terrible thirst after
They have to take off all their clothes and shoes. They are “shaved and sheared”.
They are at a work-camp at Monovitz, near Auschwitz.
They have a shower in boiling water and are then given rags to wear and “broken-down" boots with wooden soles.
The water is not drinkable but they get watery soup every day.
They don’t understand what they are told and are thrust into the icy snow barefoot and naked with the clothing in their hands They run to the next hut and are finally permitted to get dressed in the rags.
They had reached the bottom. No human condition was more miserable than this.
Each man is “a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs.” “He who loses all often easily loses himself.” They had no name, only a number.
Primo is a “Häftling”. His number is 174517. The number is tattoed on his left arm.
Only by showing one’s number can one get bread and soup.
To the old hands of the camp, the numbers told everything – the period of entry into the camp, the convoy one formed a part of, and thus the nationality.
When they ask for something they are told “This is not a sanatorium.” “The only exit is by way of the chimney.” They soon learn what this means.
The camp is called the “Lager”. It is a square of about six hundred yards in length, surrounded by two fences of barbed wire, the inner one carrying a high tension current.
There are sixty wooden huts called Blocks.
There are two men in most of the bunks, which are portable planks of wood, each covered by a thin straw sack and two blankets.
The guests of the Lager are the criminals, the politicals and the Jews. They are all clothed in stripes, all are “Haftlinge”. The Jews, who form the large majority, wear the Jewish Star, red and yellow.
It is best to get a ladleful of soup from the bottom of the vat, as otherwise the soup is too watery.
Everything is liable to be stolen so they need to sleep with their head on a bundle made up of their jacket and all their possessions, including their bowl and shoes.
If one goes to the latrine or washroom, everything has to be carried along, and while one washes one’s face, the bundle of clothes has to be held tightly between one’s knees so as not to be stolen.
“Death begins with the shoes.” They can be instruments of torture which after a few hours of marching cause painful sores, which become totally infected.
Everybody walks except those who are ill. All hours of light are working hours.
Levi quickly gets numb sores on the back of his feet that will not heal.
His belly is swollen, his limbs emaciated, his face thick in the morning, hollow in the evening, Some have yellow skin, others grey.
The slab of bread “seems gigantic in your neighbour’s hand, but in your own hand so small as to make you cry”.
The floor of the washroom is covered by mud. The water is not drinkable and has a revolting smell. Often there is no water.
He is given work carrying coal sacks together with a man called “Null Achtzehn” - Zero Eighteen.
Null Achtzehn is no longer a man – he gives the impression of being empty inside. He is very young and indifferent to the point of not even troubling to avoid tiredness or blows or to search for food. He carries out all the orders he is given and when they send him to his death he will go with the same indifference.
Primo belongs to the category of “economically useful Jews”.
They have a medical examination. Afterwards a Pole says to him “Du Jude, kaput, Du schnell fertig.” (You Jew, finished, You soon ready for crematorium,)
His foot is wounded, and thus he goes to Ka-Be.
Ka-Be is an abbreviation of Krankenhaus, the Infirmary,
It is a life of limbo. It is not cold, there is no work to do, and unless you commit some fault, you are not beaten.
The bread is distributed at half-past five and one can cut it into thin slices and eat it lying down.
There is also an evening ration, served in bed.
One man gives Primo his spoon and knife as part of a group being led out with long hair and without being treated, without a shower, They are going to the crematorium.
After thirty days of Ka-Be, when his wound is practically healed, to his great displeasure, Primo is discharged,
Alfredo is his best friend, He is only 22, two years younger than Primo.
In the winter the nights are long and they are allowed a considerable interval of time to sleep.
In the winter, the men’s only purpose is to reach the Spring.
“The Lager is hunger; we ourselves are hunger. Living hunger.”
The word “Muselmann” is used to describe the weak, the inept, those doomed to selection .
The Muselmanner form the backbone of the camp, “an anonymous mass ---- of non-men who march and labour in silence, the divine spark dead within them, already too empty to really suffer”.
The men’s hunger is not the feeling of missing a meal and their way of being cold needs a new word.
“If the Lager had lasted longer, a new, harsh language would have been born; and only this language would express what it means to toil the whole day in the wind with the temperature below freezing, wearing only a shirt, underpants, cloth jacket and trousers and in one’s body nothing but weakness, hunger and knowledge of the end drawing nearer.”
The young tell the young that only the old ones will be chosen, The healthy tell the healthy that only the ill will be chosen.
The Germans and Poles go to work in rubber jackets, woollen ear-pads and padded overalls, and the English have wonderful fur-lined jackets.
In Primo’s Lager, except for a few of the privileged, they have distributed no overcoats, so they are left in their summer jackets.
Primo was chosen as one of the three Halftlinge for the chemical laboratory.
As a specialized worker, he has the right to a new shirt and underpants and must be shaved every Wednesday.
The temperature in the laboratory is wonderful – 65 degrees F.
They should suffer neither hunger nor cold this winter. This means they are not likely to fall seriously ill, nor be frozen.
But he gets scarlet fever and is sent to the Ka-Be. All the healthy prisoners are evacuated on January 18, 1945,
All the Germans leave. The towers are empty.
There was no more water or electricity; broken windows and doors were slamming in the wind.
They found two sacks with potatoes and also a cast-iron stove which they took to their hut in a wheelbarrow.
A broken window was repaired and the stove made to work, They had found wood and coal.
They had enough potatoes for two days only and had to melt the snow for water,
The Germans had left and they were free, but many men died The Russians arrived and now the prisoners had to find out how to get home.
This is a shocking account of the prisoners’ life in Auschwitz, Primo has written a sequel telling how he got home.
It is wonderfully written but horrifying.
Levi was 24 when he was captured by the Fascist Militia.
The men and women are divided. The men never see tthe women again. The men are divided into fit and unfit. They have a terrible thirst after
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having had nothing to drink for four days. They have to take off all their clothes and shoes. They are “shaved and sheared”.
They are at a work-camp at Monovitz, near Auschwitz.
They have a shower in boiling water and are then given rags to wear and “broken-down" boots with wooden soles.
The water is not drinkable but they get watery soup every day.
They don’t understand what they are told and are thrust into the icy snow barefoot and naked with the clothing in their hands They run to the next hut and are finally permitted to get dressed in the rags.
They had reached the bottom. No human condition was more miserable than this.
Each man is “a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs.” “He who loses all often easily loses himself.” They had no name, only a number.
Primo is a “Häftling”. His number is 174517. The number is tattoed on his left arm.
Only by showing one’s number can one get bread and soup.
To the old hands of the camp, the numbers told everything – the period of entry into the camp, the convoy one formed a part of, and thus the nationality.
When they ask for something they are told “This is not a sanatorium.” “The only exit is by way of the chimney.” They soon learn what this means.
The camp is called the “Lager”. It is a square of about six hundred yards in length, surrounded by two fences of barbed wire, the inner one carrying a high tension current.
There are sixty wooden huts called Blocks.
There are two men in most of the bunks, which are portable planks of wood, each covered by a thin straw sack and two blankets.
The guests of the Lager are the criminals, the politicals and the Jews. They are all clothed in stripes, all are “Haftlinge”. The Jews, who form the large majority, wear the Jewish Star, red and yellow.
It is best to get a ladleful of soup from the bottom of the vat, as otherwise the soup is too watery.
Everything is liable to be stolen so they need to sleep with their head on a bundle made up of their jacket and all their possessions, including their bowl and shoes.
If one goes to the latrine or washroom, everything has to be carried along, and while one washes one’s face, the bundle of clothes has to be held tightly between one’s knees so as not to be stolen.
“Death begins with the shoes.” They can be instruments of torture which after a few hours of marching cause painful sores, which become totally infected.
Everybody walks except those who are ill. All hours of light are working hours.
Levi quickly gets numb sores on the back of his feet that will not heal.
His belly is swollen, his limbs emaciated, his face thick in the morning, hollow in the evening, Some have yellow skin, others grey.
The slab of bread “seems gigantic in your neighbour’s hand, but in your own hand so small as to make you cry”.
The floor of the washroom is covered by mud. The water is not drinkable and has a revolting smell. Often there is no water.
He is given work carrying coal sacks together with a man called “Null Achtzehn” - Zero Eighteen.
Null Achtzehn is no longer a man – he gives the impression of being empty inside. He is very young and indifferent to the point of not even troubling to avoid tiredness or blows or to search for food. He carries out all the orders he is given and when they send him to his death he will go with the same indifference.
Primo belongs to the category of “economically useful Jews”.
They have a medical examination. Afterwards a Pole says to him “Du Jude, kaput, Du schnell fertig.” (You Jew, finished, You soon ready for crematorium,)
His foot is wounded, and thus he goes to Ka-Be.
Ka-Be is an abbreviation of Krankenhaus, the Infirmary,
It is a life of limbo. It is not cold, there is no work to do, and unless you commit some fault, you are not beaten.
The bread is distributed at half-past five and one can cut it into thin slices and eat it lying down.
There is also an evening ration, served in bed.
One man gives Primo his spoon and knife as part of a group being led out with long hair and without being treated, without a shower, They are going to the crematorium.
After thirty days of Ka-Be, when his wound is practically healed, to his great displeasure, Primo is discharged,
Alfredo is his best friend, He is only 22, two years younger than Primo.
In the winter the nights are long and they are allowed a considerable interval of time to sleep.
In the winter, the men’s only purpose is to reach the Spring.
“The Lager is hunger; we ourselves are hunger. Living hunger.”
The word “Muselmann” is used to describe the weak, the inept, those doomed to selection .
The Muselmanner form the backbone of the camp, “an anonymous mass ---- of non-men who march and labour in silence, the divine spark dead within them, already too empty to really suffer”.
The men’s hunger is not the feeling of missing a meal and their way of being cold needs a new word.
“If the Lager had lasted longer, a new, harsh language would have been born; and only this language would express what it means to toil the whole day in the wind with the temperature below freezing, wearing only a shirt, underpants, cloth jacket and trousers and in one’s body nothing but weakness, hunger and knowledge of the end drawing nearer.”
The young tell the young that only the old ones will be chosen, The healthy tell the healthy that only the ill will be chosen.
The Germans and Poles go to work in rubber jackets, woollen ear-pads and padded overalls, and the English have wonderful fur-lined jackets.
In Primo’s Lager, except for a few of the privileged, they have distributed no overcoats, so they are left in their summer jackets.
Primo was chosen as one of the three Halftlinge for the chemical laboratory.
As a specialized worker, he has the right to a new shirt and underpants and must be shaved every Wednesday.
The temperature in the laboratory is wonderful – 65 degrees F.
They should suffer neither hunger nor cold this winter. This means they are not likely to fall seriously ill, nor be frozen.
But he gets scarlet fever and is sent to the Ka-Be. All the healthy prisoners are evacuated on January 18, 1945,
All the Germans leave. The towers are empty.
There was no more water or electricity; broken windows and doors were slamming in the wind.
They found two sacks with potatoes and also a cast-iron stove which they took to their hut in a wheelbarrow.
A broken window was repaired and the stove made to work, They had found wood and coal.
They had enough potatoes for two days only and had to melt the snow for water,
The Germans had left and they were free, but many men died The Russians arrived and now the prisoners had to find out how to get home.
This is a shocking account of the prisoners’ life in Auschwitz, Primo has written a sequel telling how he got home.
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LibraryThing member Ron_Peters
Primo Levi's classic depiction of his 10 months spent as a prisoner in Auschwitz in 1944. "Here is the product of a conception of the world carried rigorously to its logical conclusion; so long as the conception subsists, the conclusion remains to threaten us." (p. 9) A textbook, of sorts, on the
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techniques of dehumanization and the corresponding responses that lead to survival and resilience. Show Less
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Awards
Deutscher Hörbuchpreis (2021)
The Hundred Most Influential Books Since the War (35 — [1950])