Product Description

Survival In Auschwitz by Primo Levi is widely considered to be one of the top classic books of all time. It is a work of witness written in narrative form by the author Primo Levi. Survival In Auschwitz was influenced by Primo Levi's experiences in the concentration camp at Auschwitz during World War 2 and it seeks to consider the human condition in all its extremes. This book is often required reading for many courses and curriculums throughout the world. But whether it is required reading or not, Survival In Auschwitz is a compelling book and it should be a part of everyone's personal library.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26831 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12-27
• Binding: Paperback
• 170 pages

Amazon.com Review
Survival in Auschwitz is a mostly straightforward narrative, beginning with Primo Levi's deportation from Turin, Italy, to the concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland in 1943. Levi, then a 25-year-old chemist, spent 10 months in the camp. Even Levi's most graphic descriptions of the horrors he witnessed and endured there are marked by a restraint and wit that not only gives readers access to his experience, but confronts them with it in stark ethical and emotional terms: "[A]t dawn the barbed wire was full of children's washing hung out in the wind to dry. Nor did they forget the diapers, the toys, the cushions and the hundred other small things which mothers remember and which children always need. Would you not do the same? If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him something to eat today?" --Michael Joseph Gross

Review
The Times Literary Supplement (London) Survival in Auschwitz has the inevitability of the true work of art. -- Review

Review
Italo CalvinoOne of the most important and gifted writers of our time.

David Caute,New StatesmanSurvival in Auschwitz is a stark prose poem on the deepest sufferings of man told without self-pity, but with a muted passion and intensity, an occasional cry of anguish, which makes it one of the most remarkable documents I have ever read.

Meredith Tax,The Village VoiceMore than anything else I've read or seen, Levi's books helped me not only to grasp the reality of genocide but to figure out what it means for people like me who grew up sheltered from the storm.

The Times Literary Supplement (London)Survival in Auschwitz has the inevitability of the true work of art.

Customer Reviews

Passionate & instructive insight into the Holocaust
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.

dispassionate but moving account of the durability of life

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

A Clinical Look at Auschwitz
There are reasons why it is difficult to review a book like this. First, it is a translation so it is hard to tell whether problems with prose belong to the author or the translator. Second, it is a Holocaust memoir which means criticizing it feels like criticizing the author's experiences. And yet, if we are going to do justice to any piece of writing, a reader has to be willing to be honest about his reactions to it. My reaction is simple: I think this is a good piece of writing but not a great one.

Despite it's brevity, I found this a very difficult book to get through. I wanted very much to be moved by Levi's experiences but it wasn't until the final section, "The Story of Ten Days," that I really felt emotion--that I connected to the author's fight for survival. Most of the time I felt detached because the writing felt very clinical to me. Unlike Elie Weisel's Night, for example, a memoir I've read many times, which grabs me from the first page and doesn't let go.

This is not to discount the horror of Auschwitz's nor Levi's obvious suffering. I guess it's just that, strange as it may sound, I want to be drawn into the author's horror and share his plight. I rarely had that feeling here. However, there is no doubt that this book offers a unique insight into the Auschwitz experience and cannot be discounted. Anyone interested in trying to understand the insanity that was the Holocaust needs to read it.