Primo Levi has emerged as one of the most incisive and candid intellects among those writers who experienced the Holocaust and survived to tell about it. It would be difficult to find anyone who displays the soul of the persecuted Jew with more eloquence than does Levi.
Born in Turin, one of Italy's most industrialized cities, on July 31, l9l9, the son of a successful electrical engineer, Levi grew up, during the years before World War II, in the relative comfort of the Italian middle class, in a period when being Jewish had not yet become a reason of segregation and then persecution. In l937, Levi enrolled at the University of Turin and majored in Chemistry. Because he had enrolled one year prior to the promulgation of the Fascist "racial laws," which, along with other restrictions, prohibited Jews from attending public schools, he was allowed to complete his studies. He graduated summa cum laude in l941. His diploma, however, carried the phrase "di razza ebraica" ("of the Jewish race"), the first act of discrimination he personally experienced.
In February l944, as a result of a betrayal of his partisan activities in the Aosta region, north of Turin, Levi was sent to Auschwitz. This made him a witness to one of humanity's darkest moments. Not able to foresee the tragic consequences of his own decision, upon capture, Levi admitted admit that he was a Jew, rather than to own up to his partisan involvement. This confession, he maintained, (in The Periodic Table) was made, in part, because he was tired and worn down emotionally, partly because he chose to believe this would carry a less harsh punishment, but to a greater extent because of an unexpected, sudden surge of pride in his origins. Primo Levi was one of close to 6400 Italian Jews to be deported, mainly to the camps of Auschwitz, Birkenau and Mauthausen. Of these, only a few hundred survivors returned home. Of the 650 prisoners who were taken to Auschwitz with Levi, only fifteen men and eight women survived.
In Auschwitz, by his own account, he was shocked into confronting his Jewishness by the wild course of events that allowed the Holocaust to occur. Yet he was also candid in admitting that the experience had the positive effect of awakening in him his sense of identity and an attachment to his long–neglected "cultural patrimony," of which he would be proud for the rest of his life. Paradoxical as it may seem, The other positive effect Auschwitz had on Levi was that it led him to become the admired and valued writer he is today.
As prisoner number 174517, Primo Levi's life was proscribed by the most irrational actions of others. In the Lager, what determined life or death defied any sense of logic.
Although Levi believed that for anyone to survive this horrendous experience, including his own, it was essentially the result of many diverse and unwittingly "lucky" circumstances --"lucky" is Levi’s own word in the interview with Philip Roth-- Levi quickly learned that, in the Lager, to communicate increased one's slim chances of survival, and as a man of science, whose inclination it was to observe with patience, to analyze and to understand, Levi was able to absorb, and then to communicate the Shoah as a didactic, as well as a personal experience.
Levi's ongoing, compelling need to address the effect and consequences of the death camps --an intense need which he often likened to that of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" who could not repress the urge to tell his "ghastly tale" to whomever and wherever, was fueled in great part by an inner desire to prove the Nazis wrong in their claim that no one in the death camp would live to tell of it and that, even if someone did survive to tell, no one on the outside would believe the magnitude of the atrocities. His eloquent voice stands as proof that at least one Jew did live to tell. The more difficult task Levi saw before him was how to go about convincing the outside world of what he had witnessed.
Born in Turin, one of Italy's most industrialized cities, on July 31, l9l9, the son of a successful electrical engineer, Levi grew up, during the years before World War II, in the relative comfort of the Italian middle class, in a period when being Jewish had not yet become a reason of segregation and then persecution. In l937, Levi enrolled at the University of Turin and majored in Chemistry. Because he had enrolled one year prior to the promulgation of the Fascist "racial laws," which, along with other restrictions, prohibited Jews from attending public schools, he was allowed to complete his studies. He graduated summa cum laude in l941. His diploma, however, carried the phrase "di razza ebraica" ("of the Jewish race"), the first act of discrimination he personally experienced.
In February l944, as a result of a betrayal of his partisan activities in the Aosta region, north of Turin, Levi was sent to Auschwitz. This made him a witness to one of humanity's darkest moments. Not able to foresee the tragic consequences of his own decision, upon capture, Levi admitted admit that he was a Jew, rather than to own up to his partisan involvement. This confession, he maintained, (in The Periodic Table) was made, in part, because he was tired and worn down emotionally, partly because he chose to believe this would carry a less harsh punishment, but to a greater extent because of an unexpected, sudden surge of pride in his origins. Primo Levi was one of close to 6400 Italian Jews to be deported, mainly to the camps of Auschwitz, Birkenau and Mauthausen. Of these, only a few hundred survivors returned home. Of the 650 prisoners who were taken to Auschwitz with Levi, only fifteen men and eight women survived.
In Auschwitz, by his own account, he was shocked into confronting his Jewishness by the wild course of events that allowed the Holocaust to occur. Yet he was also candid in admitting that the experience had the positive effect of awakening in him his sense of identity and an attachment to his long–neglected "cultural patrimony," of which he would be proud for the rest of his life. Paradoxical as it may seem, The other positive effect Auschwitz had on Levi was that it led him to become the admired and valued writer he is today.
As prisoner number 174517, Primo Levi's life was proscribed by the most irrational actions of others. In the Lager, what determined life or death defied any sense of logic.
Although Levi believed that for anyone to survive this horrendous experience, including his own, it was essentially the result of many diverse and unwittingly "lucky" circumstances --"lucky" is Levi’s own word in the interview with Philip Roth-- Levi quickly learned that, in the Lager, to communicate increased one's slim chances of survival, and as a man of science, whose inclination it was to observe with patience, to analyze and to understand, Levi was able to absorb, and then to communicate the Shoah as a didactic, as well as a personal experience.
Levi's ongoing, compelling need to address the effect and consequences of the death camps --an intense need which he often likened to that of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" who could not repress the urge to tell his "ghastly tale" to whomever and wherever, was fueled in great part by an inner desire to prove the Nazis wrong in their claim that no one in the death camp would live to tell of it and that, even if someone did survive to tell, no one on the outside would believe the magnitude of the atrocities. His eloquent voice stands as proof that at least one Jew did live to tell. The more difficult task Levi saw before him was how to go about convincing the outside world of what he had witnessed.