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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 show more is an illuminating conversation between Philip Roth and Primo Levi never before published in book form.--From publisher description. show lessTags
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Ça faisait longtemps que je n'avais pas autant accroché à un livre. C'est pourtant un sujet délicat, sur lequel j'ai lu et vu beaucoup de choses, très différentes, plus ou moins appréciées. Mais ici, ça n'a rien à voir.
C'est tout d'abord un témoignage de l'intérieur, avec très peu de vécu ou d'analyse extérieur.
C'est ensuite à peu près vide de tout misérabilisme, sensationnalisme, drame en tout genre - et ceci n'est pas une critique des autres choses vues ou lues, car le sujet se prête tout "naturellement" au drame - mais ici l'auteur y échappe et apporte même de l'humour, show more quasiment toujours présent, en filigrane, et je trouve ça magnifique.
C'est enfin, et surtout, une écriture comme je les aime - Ah, cette écriture! Simple, directe, précise, sans fioriture ni effet de manche. J'adore. Ça met le sujet au premier plan, tout nu, tout cru, efficace.
Il me semble inutile d'ajouter qu'aucun des faits n'y est inventé.
C'est tout d'abord un témoignage de l'intérieur, avec très peu de vécu ou d'analyse extérieur.
Je cultivais à part moi un sentiment de révolte abstrait et modéré.
C'est ensuite à peu près vide de tout misérabilisme, sensationnalisme, drame en tout genre - et ceci n'est pas une critique des autres choses vues ou lues, car le sujet se prête tout "naturellement" au drame - mais ici l'auteur y échappe et apporte même de l'humour, show more quasiment toujours présent, en filigrane, et je trouve ça magnifique.
leurs âmes sont mortes et c'est la musique qui les pousse en avant comme le vent les feuilles sèches, et leur tient lieu de volonté. Car ils n'ont plus de volonté: chaque pulsation est un pas, une contraction automatique de leurs muscles inertes. Voilà ce qu'on fait les Allemands. Ils sont dix mille hommes, et ils ne forment plus qu'une même machine grise ; ils sont exactement déterminés ; ils ne pensent pas, ils ne veulent pas, ils marchent. Jamais les SS n'ont manqué l'une de ces parades d'entrée et de sortie. Qui pourrait leur refuser le droit d'assister à la chorégraphie qu'ils ont eux-même élaborée, à la danse de ces hommes morts qui laissent, équipe par équipe, le brouillard pour le brouillard? Quelle preuve plus tangible de leur victoire?
C'est enfin, et surtout, une écriture comme je les aime - Ah, cette écriture! Simple, directe, précise, sans fioriture ni effet de manche. J'adore. Ça met le sujet au premier plan, tout nu, tout cru, efficace.
Je ne suis plus assez vivant pour être capable de me supprimer.show less
No horror da Lager, Primo Levi encontra a humilhação, o cansaço, a fome, os prisioneiros que roubam uns dos outros, que se desumanizam, e também um operário que se arrisca para lhe dar sopa, amigos, crianças, pessoas que admira e que o espantam, pessoas que morrem de doenças banais. Levi não é ingênuo, vê tudo que lhe aconteceu e pergunta É Isso um Homem? Que não conhece paz, que luta por meio pão, que morre por um sim e por um não? E amaldiçoa as pessoas que não repetirem a história aos filhos.
Ele disse que depois recebeu cartas de pessoas que diziam não ter repetido a história aos filhos porque era pesada para crianças, como se as crianças não fossem as que mais precisavam saber de tudo aquilo.
Mais do que show more contar a sua história, que não se esquecer que era uma pessoa, não um número, um trecho mostra Levi resistindo a desumanização da Lager: o Canto de Ulisses, recitado a um homem que não falava italiano, mal traduzido para o alemão por um homem com fome, com tentativas de explicação que foram provavelmente completamente ineficazes. Isso é lindo. Mostra a arte como algo capaz de afirmar a humanidade de um homem submetido a terríveis provações por meio de um texto de seiscentos anos. show less
Ele disse que depois recebeu cartas de pessoas que diziam não ter repetido a história aos filhos porque era pesada para crianças, como se as crianças não fossem as que mais precisavam saber de tudo aquilo.
Mais do que show more contar a sua história, que não se esquecer que era uma pessoa, não um número, um trecho mostra Levi resistindo a desumanização da Lager: o Canto de Ulisses, recitado a um homem que não falava italiano, mal traduzido para o alemão por um homem com fome, com tentativas de explicação que foram provavelmente completamente ineficazes. Isso é lindo. Mostra a arte como algo capaz de afirmar a humanidade de um homem submetido a terríveis provações por meio de um texto de seiscentos anos. show less
Primo Levi was a 25-year-old "Italian citizen of Jewish race" when he was arrested by the Fascist Militia in 1943 and deported to Auschwitz in late February of 1944. This is his account of the 10 months he spent there before liberation by the Russians. While the book examines the daily torments of the prisoners, Levi's book is told from his perspective of the camps as a “gigantic biological and social experiment.” Each prisoner is deprived of everything: family, clothing, hair, cleanliness, warmth, safety, the ability to make decisions, even their names. Not only do the captors not see their prisoners as human beings, they stop seeing each other, and even themselves, as human as well. Each life compress to nothing more than making show more it through the next hour, and no one dares to think of a future. Those that don't succumb to despair learn to fight for survival every minute, even becoming entrepreneurs in order to secure extra food or necessities such as spoons or fabric to patch their pitiful clothing.
Levi's language is spare, but somehow that gives his factual statement of what they endured even more of an impact, and makes his observations of the descent into hopelessness the more harrowing. When it's clear they may survive their ordeal and his fellow patients vote to share their ration of bread with those who've been able to help them survive, we see for the first time the emergence of the men they used to be.
I thought this book was excellent and would recommend it to others looking to see the camp experience from a different perspective. show less
Levi's language is spare, but somehow that gives his factual statement of what they endured even more of an impact, and makes his observations of the descent into hopelessness the more harrowing. When it's clear they may survive their ordeal and his fellow patients vote to share their ration of bread with those who've been able to help them survive, we see for the first time the emergence of the men they used to be.
I thought this book was excellent and would recommend it to others looking to see the camp experience from a different perspective. show less
Ik kan niet eens beschrijven hoe hard dit boek me geraakt heeft. Iedereen kent wel de statistieken rond de Holocaust. Miljoenen uitgeroeid. Het probleem van die statistieken is dat die zo onbegrijpelijk zijn dat ze nooit de gruwel van de Holocaust volledig zullen kunnen tonen. Dit boek daarentegen raakt je hard met feit na feit. De doorlopende beschrijvingen van de dehumanisering uitgevoerd door de SS in de kampen is choquerend. Het boek toont ook duidelijk aan dat dit de enige logische conclusie is van leven in de kampen. Je kan er enkel maar als een dier uitkomen. Met het enige onderscheid misschien dat de SS meer respect had voor dieren.
Het boek is zeer aangrijpend beschreven, en het beperkt zich niet in wat allemaal beschreven show more wordt. In het lezen van dit boek heb ik een afschuwelijk, maar completer beeld gekregen van hoe het leven in de kampen eruit zag. Het is een verhaal dat enkel een overlevende van de Holocaust ooit zou kunnen schrijven, zo hard is het. Ik raad het dan ook aan iedereen aan om te lezen.
De manier waarop ik dit boek heb gelezen had volgens mij ook wel een impact op hoe ik het boek ervaren heb. Het boek is onderdeel van mijn opleiding, en is verplichte kennis voor op het examen, waardoor ik het zeer grondig geannoteerd heb. Door zo grondig bezig te zijn met de inhoud van de tekst heeft deze een nog grotere impact op me gehad, en zou ik zelfs durven zeggen dat dit het beste boek is dat ik ooit gelezen heb. show less
Het boek is zeer aangrijpend beschreven, en het beperkt zich niet in wat allemaal beschreven show more wordt. In het lezen van dit boek heb ik een afschuwelijk, maar completer beeld gekregen van hoe het leven in de kampen eruit zag. Het is een verhaal dat enkel een overlevende van de Holocaust ooit zou kunnen schrijven, zo hard is het. Ik raad het dan ook aan iedereen aan om te lezen.
De manier waarop ik dit boek heb gelezen had volgens mij ook wel een impact op hoe ik het boek ervaren heb. Het boek is onderdeel van mijn opleiding, en is verplichte kennis voor op het examen, waardoor ik het zeer grondig geannoteerd heb. Door zo grondig bezig te zijn met de inhoud van de tekst heeft deze een nog grotere impact op me gehad, en zou ik zelfs durven zeggen dat dit het beste boek is dat ik ooit gelezen heb. show less
International Holocaust Remembrance Day coincides every year with the date of Primo Levi’s liberation from Auschwitz. To mark the 79th anniversary of his liberation, I read If This Is a Man, his memoir of his experiences in Auschwitz. Levi, a chemist by trade, describes the labor camp where he worked as a “gigantic biological and social experiment.” In precise, almost clinical, yet unflinchingly moral language, he shares with us what he learned from his time there about the limits of humanity—moral, psychic, and physical. His memoir offers a glimpse not into what a human being is, but what one can be turned into. What remain indelible for me in this story are how people clung to their humanness, and how others deprived them of show more it, or tried to. show less
Captured in December of 1943 by the Fascist Militia, a young twenty-five year old Primo Levi was drawn out of his life as an "Italian citizen of the Jewish race" into a nightmare that could only compare to the depths of Dante's Inferno. This book is his story of the capture, journey to, and life in the Buna section of Auschwitz. This was a "work" camp that provided slave labor for a rubber factory built for the I. G. Farben company.
Levi describes his experiences with vignettes from his period of internment. These vignettes are interspersed with his commentary on his own feelings, relations with other "haftlings" (prisoners), all of whom have become identified with a number tattooed on their arm. Primo Levi was number 174517.
One of the show more themes of Levi's memoir is language; its meaning and importance for life in the camp. Early on he becomes "aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man." The difficulty of being understood when you do not speak the language of your captors heightens the misery of daily activities making life more tortuous than it already was. At the end of the eighth chapter Levi observes that theft among the prisoners (a daily reality) " is generally punished , but the punishment strikes the thief and the victim with equal gravity." Further, he comments directly to the reader:
"We now invite the reader to contemplate the possible meaning in the Lager of the words 'good' and 'evil', 'just' and 'unjust'; let everybody judge, on the basis of the picture we have outlined and of the examples given above, how much of our ordinary moral world could survive on this side of the barbed wire." (p 86)
Each chapter is named and these names signal the emphasis and direction of the book, if at times only metaphorically. Thus the descent of Levi includes a discussion of "The Drowned and the Saved" and encompasses "The Work" and "A Good Day". Of course a good day for Levi is one in which he can merely revel in the smile of one other person -- never matter the hunger!
In these moments he considers the meaning of his experiences and asks "if it is necessary or good to retain any memory of this exceptional human state." He replies affirmatively, saying:
"We are in fact convinced that no human experience is without meaning or unworthy of analysis, and that fundamental values, even if they are not positive, can be deduced from this particular world which we are describing." (p 87)
In the chapter "The Canto of Ulysses" (a reference to Dante's Inferno) he quotes part of the Canto from memory, sharing with his fellow workers in the Chemical hut where he had fortunately been transferred. It is during this episode that "For a moment I forget who I am and where I am." He repeats a few lines for his friend Pikolo, but later bemoans the fact that he cannot remember the whole Canto, claiming he would give up his daily soup to remember the missing lines. His action can be seen as an attempt to maintain his humanity in the face of tremendous difficulties, thinking that:
"I must explain to him about the Middle Ages, about the so human and so necessary and yet unexpected anachronism, but still more, something gigantic that I myself have only just seen, in a flash of intuition, perhaps the reason for our fate, for our being here today . . ." (p 115)
Levi eventually survives the camp and lives to share his story and write even more after returning to his native home. However, it is not until after he has experienced a multitude of tortures and indignities. Not the least of which was the hanging of one inmate who made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. Of this episode Levi writes:
"To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze; from our side you have nothing more to fear; no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgement.: (p 150)
In January, 1945, the Russians arrived and Primo Levi began his journey home. show less
Levi describes his experiences with vignettes from his period of internment. These vignettes are interspersed with his commentary on his own feelings, relations with other "haftlings" (prisoners), all of whom have become identified with a number tattooed on their arm. Primo Levi was number 174517.
One of the show more themes of Levi's memoir is language; its meaning and importance for life in the camp. Early on he becomes "aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man." The difficulty of being understood when you do not speak the language of your captors heightens the misery of daily activities making life more tortuous than it already was. At the end of the eighth chapter Levi observes that theft among the prisoners (a daily reality) " is generally punished , but the punishment strikes the thief and the victim with equal gravity." Further, he comments directly to the reader:
"We now invite the reader to contemplate the possible meaning in the Lager of the words 'good' and 'evil', 'just' and 'unjust'; let everybody judge, on the basis of the picture we have outlined and of the examples given above, how much of our ordinary moral world could survive on this side of the barbed wire." (p 86)
Each chapter is named and these names signal the emphasis and direction of the book, if at times only metaphorically. Thus the descent of Levi includes a discussion of "The Drowned and the Saved" and encompasses "The Work" and "A Good Day". Of course a good day for Levi is one in which he can merely revel in the smile of one other person -- never matter the hunger!
In these moments he considers the meaning of his experiences and asks "if it is necessary or good to retain any memory of this exceptional human state." He replies affirmatively, saying:
"We are in fact convinced that no human experience is without meaning or unworthy of analysis, and that fundamental values, even if they are not positive, can be deduced from this particular world which we are describing." (p 87)
In the chapter "The Canto of Ulysses" (a reference to Dante's Inferno) he quotes part of the Canto from memory, sharing with his fellow workers in the Chemical hut where he had fortunately been transferred. It is during this episode that "For a moment I forget who I am and where I am." He repeats a few lines for his friend Pikolo, but later bemoans the fact that he cannot remember the whole Canto, claiming he would give up his daily soup to remember the missing lines. His action can be seen as an attempt to maintain his humanity in the face of tremendous difficulties, thinking that:
"I must explain to him about the Middle Ages, about the so human and so necessary and yet unexpected anachronism, but still more, something gigantic that I myself have only just seen, in a flash of intuition, perhaps the reason for our fate, for our being here today . . ." (p 115)
Levi eventually survives the camp and lives to share his story and write even more after returning to his native home. However, it is not until after he has experienced a multitude of tortures and indignities. Not the least of which was the hanging of one inmate who made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. Of this episode Levi writes:
"To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze; from our side you have nothing more to fear; no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgement.: (p 150)
In January, 1945, the Russians arrived and Primo Levi began his journey home. show less
Libro de memorias, de memoria reciente pues se escribió un año después de sucedidos los hechos. Por tanto, vigorosamente testimonial. De una poderosa fuerza por lo que relata sin apelar al artificio expositivo. Contención: ésta palabra define el estilo, el lenguaje y el talante de “Si esto es un hombre”. Todo el relato es asépticamente descriptivo. Primo Levi se erige en testigo, incomprensiblemente imparcial o al menos aparentemente objetivo y desapasionado, de uno de los episodios más execrables que ha protagonizado el ser humano a lo largo de la historia. El autor no instila odio, no hay rencor en sus sobrias y mesuradas expresiones, ni ansias de revancha ni obsceno victimismo. Este posicionamiento infunde veracidad a todo show more el escrito aún cuando, algo improbable, el lector no conociera los hechos. Escrupulosamente riguroso, sólo describe lo que conoció como experiencia directa aunque posteriormente recabase más información sobre lo que pasaba en su proximidad.
En definitiva, Primo Levi no juzga porque “sólo así el testigo en un juicio cumple su función, que es la de preparar el terreno para el juez. Los jueces sois vosotros”. (Apéndice de 1976) Levi invita a la reflexión y, consecuentemente, a implicarse, a formular un veredicto; a adoptar una actitud ante las nuevas, que son viejas, formas de totalitarismo que continuamente brotan a nuestro alrededor. show less
En definitiva, Primo Levi no juzga porque “sólo así el testigo en un juicio cumple su función, que es la de preparar el terreno para el juez. Los jueces sois vosotros”. (Apéndice de 1976) Levi invita a la reflexión y, consecuentemente, a implicarse, a formular un veredicto; a adoptar una actitud ante las nuevas, que son viejas, formas de totalitarismo que continuamente brotan a nuestro alrededor. show less
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Author Information
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Primo Levi was born on July 31, 1919 in Turin, Italy. He pursued a career in chemistry, and spent the early years World War II as a research chemist in Milan. Upon the German invasion of northern Italy, Levi, an Italian Jew, joined an anti-fascist group and was captured and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. He was able to survive show more the camp, due in part to his value to the Nazis as a chemist. After the war ended, Levi did chemistry work in a Turin paint factory while beginning his writing career. His first book, If This Is a Man (title later was changed to Survival in Auschwitz) was published in 1947 and its sequel, The Truce (later retitled The Reawakening) came out in 1958. These two books recount Levi's story of surviving concentration camp life. Levi also published poetry, short stories, and novels, some under the pen name Damianos Malabaila. His 1985, largely autobiographical work, The Periodic Table, cemented his world fame. Awards in tribute to his writing included the Kenneth B. Smilen fiction award, presented by the Jewish Museum in New York. Ironically, despite his surviving Auschwitz, Primo Levi appears to have died by suicide, in Turin on April 11, 1987. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Notable Lists
Torchlight List (#133)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- If This Is a Man
- Original title
- Se questo è un uomo
- Alternate titles
- Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity
- Original publication date
- 1947
- People/Characters
- Primo Levi; Null Achtzehn; Piero Sonnino; Schlepsel; Elias Lindzin (141565); Kraus Páli (show all 10); Alberto; Charles; Arthur; Sómogyi
- Important places
- Auschwitz concentration camp, Oświęcim, Lesser Poland, Poland
- Important events
- Holocaust
- Related movies*
- Primo (2005 | IMDb)
- Epigraph*
- Voi che vivete sicuri
Nelle vostre tiepide case,
Voi che trovate tornando a sera
Il cibo caldo e visi amici:
Considerate se questo è un uomo
Che lavora nel fango
Che non conosce pace
Che lotta per mezzo ... (show all)pane
Che muore per un sì o per un no.
Considerate se questa è una donna,
Senza capelli e senza nome
Senza più forza di ricordare
Vuoti gli occhi e freddo il grembo
Come una rana d'inverno.
Meditate che questo è stato:
Vi comando queste parole.
Scolpitele nel vostro cuore
Stando in casa andando per via,
Coricandovi alzandovi;
Ripetetele ai vostri figli.
O vi si sfaccia la casa,
La malattia vi impedisca,
I vostri nati torcano il viso da voi. - First words
- I was captured by the Fascist Militia on 13 December 1943.
- Quotations
- It seems to me unnecessary to add that none of the facts are invented.
Thus, in an instant, our women, our parents, our children disappeared. We saw them for a short while as an obscure mass at the end of the platform; then we saw nothing more.
We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last—the power to refuse our consent.
It is a Polish sun, cold, white and distant, and only warms the skin, but when it dissolved the last mists a murmur ran through our colourless numbers, and when even I felt its lukewarmth through my clothes, I understood how ... (show all)men can worship the sun.
Within its bounds not a blade of grass grows, and the soil is impregnated with the poisonous saps of coal and petroleum, and the only things alive are machines and slaves—and the former are more than the latter.
We are always happy to wait; we are capable of waiting for hours with the complete obtuse inertia of spiders in old webs.
I believe that it was really due to Lorenzo that I am alive today; and not so much for his material aid, as for his having constantly reminded me by his presence, by his natural and plain manner of being good, that there stil... (show all)l existed a just world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole, not corrupt, not savage, extraneous to hatred and terror; something difficult to define, a remote possibility of good, but for which it was worth surviving.
If the Lagers had lasted longer, a new, harsh language would have been born; and only this language could express what it means to toil the whole day in the wind, with the temperature below freezing, wearing only a shirt, und... (show all)erpants, cloth jacket and trousers, and in one's body nothing but weakness, hunger and knowledge of the end drawing nearer.
We loaded ourselves with a bottle of vodka, various medicines, newspapers and magazines and four first-rate eiderdowns, one of which odd today house in Turin.
Liberty. The breach in the barbed wire gave us a concrete image of it. To Antoine stopped to think, it signified no more Germans, no more selections, no work, no blows, no roll-calls, and perhaps, later, the return.
They organized an expedition to the English prisoner-of-war camp, which was assumed had been evacuated. It proved a fruitful expedition. They returned dressed in khaki with a cart full of wonders never seen before: margarine,... (show all) custard powders, lard, soya-bean flour, whiskey. That evening there was singing in hut 14.
We all said to each other that the Russians would arrive soon, at once; we all proclaimed it, we were all sure of it. Because one loses the habit of hoping in the Lager, and even of believing in one's own reason. In the Lager... (show all), it is useless to think, because events happen for the most part in an unforseeable manner; and it is harmful, because it keeps alive a sensitivity which is a source of pain, and which some providential natural law dulls when suffering passes a certain limit.
A movement of a finger could cause the destruction of the entire camp, could annihilate thousands of men; while the sum total of all our efforts and exertions would not be sufficient to prolong by one minute the life of even ... (show all)one of us.
However, I am fully aware that after the camp my work, or rather my two kinds of work (chemistry and writing) , did play, and still play, an essential role in my life. I am persuaded that normal human beings are biologically ... (show all)built for an activity that is aimed toward a goal and that idleness, or aimless work (like Auschwitz's Arbeit), gives rise to suffering and to atrophy.
Levi: A friend of mine, an excellent doctor, told me many years ago: “Your remembrances of before and after are in black and white; those of Auschwitz and of your travel home are in Technicolor.” He was right. Fami... (show all)ly, home, factory are good things in themselves; but they deprived me of something that I still miss: adventure. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)In April, at Katowice, I met Schenck and Alcalai in good health. Arthur has reached his family happily and Charles has taken up his teacher's profession again; we have exchanged long letters and I hope to see him again one day.
- Blurbers
- Caute, David
- Original language
- Italian
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 940.53/18/092 B
- Canonical LCC
- D805.P7 L4413 1993
- Disambiguation notice
- Please distinguish between this Work, If This Is a Man, a/k/a Survival in Auschwitz (1947), and the following similarly-titled Works:
- The anthology, If This Is a Man: Remembering Auschwitz, which... (show all) includes The Truce, a/k/a The Reawakening (1963), and Moments of Reprieve; and
- Se questo è un uomo: versione drammatica (1966), which is a dramatic version of Levi's original Work.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- (4.32)
- Languages
- 25 — Arabic, Basque, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Yiddish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 136
- ASINs
- 67