“Writer against the will”: By chance, the chemist survived the Holocaust and worked his memories in books. His view of a natural scientist is one of the most important Testimonies.
His nightmare was true. As a concentration camp prisoner, he was afraid that no one would believe him: How in Auschwitz, when people are degraded, humiliated, destroyed and have been destroyed. Primo Levi survived only thanks to chance and luck. His experiences, he wrote, directly after returning to his home country, Italy, in 1947, one of the first literary testimony to the abysmal inhumanity of the Holocaust at all. But no one wanted to read it. A long time no publisher was found, “Is that a man?” was first published in a small edition of 1400 pieces.
Today, Levi’s car is one biographical report on the world literature. In 1958, at last, the prestigious Italian publisher Einaudi printed the book, followed three years later, the German Translation. So it took about 15 years after the end of the war, to the literature of the world recognized the special value of Primo Levi’s lines had.
Cooler researchers look at the destruction of the Jews
Levi (1919-1987) was a trained chemist and grew up in an educated and parents with a great passion for literature – Primo was already able to read before his first day of school. In the processing of his experiences, he combined the view of the natural scientist with the literature. He became the “writer’s sake”, the “burden of horrible memories” ablate.
Chimneys of a destruction of the industry: concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern Poland
And so described and observed Primo Levi in “if this Is a man?”, what he stay had during his eleven-month KZ-through: cold, Hunger, deprivation of sleep and Hygiene, slave labor, severe physical Suffering. The narrative tone is cool, without comment, never loses control. Levi added, composed of nothing, refrained from expressions of Feeling, and went instead in the role of the familiar researcher. He used his shield to make his own horror air, and he left it to the reader. His sense of arms, objectivity, difference him from other autobiographical Holocaust authors, and made him a sought-after writer.
“Defenseless” and “naive” resistance fighters against fascists
Primo Levi was born in Turin as the son of a liberal Jewish family. Shortly after he had begun his study of Chemistry, issued by the then fascist government, a racial law, the Jewish citizens of the prohibition to study at public universities.
Levi managed to do it anyway, in 1941 to complete his studies with a doctorate, and award – but also with the remark, “of Jewish race”. In 1943 he joined the resistance, the resistance, and fought in the North-West of Italy. After a few weeks, he was arrested by the fascist militia. “We froze and starved, we were the most defenseless, the most partisan in the whole Piedmont, and probably also the naive,” wrote Levi later in one of his autobiographical books. Out of fear, as resistance fighters directly shot, he admitted to his Jewish ancestry, which he was in February 1944, deported to Auschwitz.
Arrival and selection: In freight trains, the national socialists, Jews from Europe who were deported to Auschwitz
The train transported 650 women, men and children. Only around 120 of them were taken as prisoners, all the other immediately in the gas chambers to be murdered. At the end of the war, Primo Levi, will be one of only five Survivors of this train. The chemist was used as forced labour for IG Farben, the Nazis found a use for the 25-year-old Italian. By this accident he survived in the factory halls to the harsh Winter. Since he fell ill, nevertheless, of scarlet fever, he was transferred to the so-called Infirmary, where he was left to fend for themselves.
Levi survived – and survived just thanks to the disease, since he left shortly before the liberation of Auschwitz and not on the death marches was taken. “The typical prisoner died in the course of a few weeks or months of exhaustion or starvation and vitamin deficiency-related diseases,” he noted at the end of the 1970s, in a letter. “Each of us Survivors is the lucky beneficiary.”
About life as a Survivor
It took almost nine months to Primo Levi arrived after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red army back home in Turin. An Odyssey of the liberator had him sent to to Minsk. This time, and his point of view on a destroyed Europe, he described in 1963 in “The break”. The autobiographical novel that was made into a film in 1997 with John Torturro in the main role, reads in part, cheerful, ends up with nightmares about the concentration camp.
Suddenly free: John Turturro in the film adaptation of “The respite”
Back in Turin Primo Levi worked as a chemist, made in ceramic insulation technology a name, rose to become the managing Director of his company and after his Retirement continued as a consultant. Meanwhile, he continued his secondary profession, writing,. He tried, successfully, in various Genres such as short stories, novels and poems, sometimes under a Pseudonym.
At the end of his life he devoted himself to the traumatic memories: “My true University Auschwitz was.” In 1975, he is the author of “The periodic System” a much-acclaimed volume of short stories. The 21 autobiographical experiences, he was dedicated to each chemical Element, whose properties are part of the narrative. The Imperial College London chose the Band in the context of an audience vote for “best popular science book of all time”. Later, a novel about the Italian partisans in the Second world war, based on his former experiences followed.
“Shame” of the Rescued
A year and a half before his death in 1986, appeared in “The drowned and the Saved”. Here, Primo Levi returned after 40 years to his formative Auschwitz experience, and summed up the themes of his life as a Survivor. In a touching way, he reflected on memories of “the greatest crime in the history of mankind”.
Tireless admonisher: Primo Levi shortly before his death
As in previous works, it is clear how much the “shame” charged that, through coincidence and luck, survived: “do Not we, the Survivors, are the real witnesses. This is an uncomfortable notion that I became slowly aware of while I was reading the memoirs of others and reading mine at a distance of years. We Survivors are only an exiguous but also an anomalous minority; we are those who have not touched due to breach of duty, because of their skill or of their happiness, the deepest point of the abyss. Who touched him, could not return to report, or he has become mute.”
The book ends with a series of letters which he had received in the 1960s by German readers of his first Auschwitz report. Document witnesses the extruded and split sense of guilt of time.
At the end of a nightmare
And so Primo Levi’s nightmare had not come true in the end: Until his death at the age of 67 years, the Italian was regarded as much respected and tireless admonisher who fought against fascism and Nazism. His reports contributed to the investigation against the commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Rudolf höss, the camp doctor, Josef Mengele, and against Adolf Eichmann, the organizer of the “final solution”,. He regularly spoke with students and wrote a memorial article for the daily Newspapers.
Shortly before his death, the prestigious Einaudi publishing house, the beginning of the book to be “the had been rejected by a man?”, the publisher offered him. The German chemical company, IG Farben paid him a compensation for the concentration camp provided forced labour – in the amount of around € 63.