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"The Times Literary Supplement" (London) "Survival in Auschwitz" has the inevitability of the true work of art.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Survival in Auschwitz: If This Is a Man is a book written by the Italian author, Primo Levi. It describes his experiences in the concentration camp at Auschwitz during the Second World War.
Levi, then a 25-year-old chemist, spent 10 months in Auschwitz before the camp was liberated by the Red Army. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his shipment, Levi was one of only twenty who left the camps alive. The average life expectancy of a new entrant was three months.
This truly amazing story offers a revealing glimpse into the realities of the Holocaust and its effects on our world.
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First Sentence
I WAS captured by the Fascist Militia on 13 December 1943. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
I WAS captured by the Fascist Militia on 13 December 1943. Read the first page
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Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
69 of 71 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It would be easy to bluntly horrify the reader in a book about life in a death camp, but Levi is not content to appeal to the emotions. He has an intellectual fascination with details, and the psychology of genocide. By a dispassionate and careful treatment of the very difficult material, he manages to write a compelling book about a terrible subject. And the emotional effect does not suffer from this approach--because Levi does not manipulate them, the reader's feelings are deeper and more lasting.
In one chapter, Levi describes how many of the prisoners, after fourteen hours of manual labor, would assemble in one corner of the camp in a market. They would trade rations and stolen goods. Levi describes how the market followed classical economic laws. Whenever I remember this I am freshly amazed at the resilience of life, and the ability of people to live and think and work in the most adverse conditions. It is remarkable that I finished a book about the Holocaust with a better opinion of mankind than I started with; I think the fact that the book affected me this way is the best recommendation.
90 of 94 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In a more perfect life, this book should be science fiction. Primo Levi deposits us in a world where the typical convivality that makes human society bearable has been eliminated and replaced by a horrible premise: humans may only live if they can do work useful to the state. "Survival in Auschwitz" plays the theme out. Those who are unable to work are immediately killed, using the most efficient means possible. Those who survive must find ways to maintain the illusion of usefulness with the least possible exertion. Instead of brotherhood, there is commerce, a black market where a stolen bar of soap is traded for a loaf of bread; the soap allows the owner to maintain a more healthy appearance while the bread feeds its owner for another day. We see property in its most base form. A spoon, a bowl, a few trinkets cleverly used, that is all a person can hold at a time. It's instructive to read this book as an insight into homelessness. What kind of place is this where we create humiliated zombies, shuffling behind their carts containing all their worldly possessions? How long can we let the State fight against the innate emotion that tells us that no-one should go hungry while we eat and no-one should be homeless while we have shelter?
What always amazes me about the Holocaust is the sheer improbability of the story of each of its survivors. This is the horror. For every shining genius of the stature of Primo Levi, there are thousands of other amazing people, gassed and murdered in the showers filled with Zyklon-B.
47 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
An incredible book... Levi's straightforward and almost unemotional tone often disguises the horror of what he is describing. I'd recommend reading it at least twice... I've read it three times now and each time I get something more. Few of us can truly understand the circumstances Levi lived through, but it is important to try.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Informative and necessary reading
Everyone should read this book. Books like this show us how easy our lives are now. Without hearing true survival stories like this it is impossible to imagine what people went... Read more
Published 4 months ago by S. Sanders
Primo Levi Masterpice
excelent book. highly recomended
a must read for everyone interested in human rights and how human beings can keep their dignity and values
even in the more difficult... Read more
a must read for everyone interested in human rights and how human beings can keep their dignity and values
even in the more difficult... Read more
Published 7 months ago by argy reader
The reality is in the detail.
I know it's a cliche but I really could not put this book down. Primo Levi gives you the details of Auschwitz life as a Jewish prisoner and often these details can mean the... Read more
Published 24 months ago by Ian Johnson
poignant read
After a visit to Auschwitz in March 2010 this book was recommended to me. Extremely moving and thought provoking- all the more vivid because of visiting.
Published on 22 April 2010 by Cathy R
JUST READ IT
It will give you an insight, you might think you understand, you might think you feel the pain, you might think you feel the fear, but you are not even close. Read more
Published on 19 Dec 2008 by Helpless
Buy 'If This Is A Man' Instead
A great work, but 'Survival in Auschwitz' is just the American name for 'If This Is A Man', which is published in Britain together with 'The Truce' in a single volume. Read more
Published on 7 July 2008 by Jeremy Hawker
One of the best Holocaust memoirs
There has been much great literature written by holocaust survivors, and this one is just about as good as any. Read more
Published on 18 Sep 2007 by Dr. D. Fraser
A testament to the strength of the human spirit !
I have been interested in WW2 for many years, a friend bought me this book and said it was a "must read. Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2006 by Stephen Mcguigan
Recommended read
Following the Auschwitz anniversary, I decided to read a lot more about the holocaust than I knew. Survival in Auschwitz by primo Levi was one of the books I read and loved. Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2005 by Edward Tem
horrific, huge, scary, what we can do to one another
please read this book. I have long studied WWII, no other work as so affected me to the extent of this book. Levi explains the ultimate horror. Read more
Published on 9 Mar 1999
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