445. If This is a Man

If This is a Man
Primo Levi
1947
Around 180 pages

I didn't know when we would get to our first Holocaust novel. The idea of experiencing something like that, and then having the wherewithal to be able to revisit it in a novel only a year after the camp was liberated is absolutely mind-blowing to me. Primo Levi has got to be one of the most impressive human beings who has ever existed.

Primo Levi was an arrested as a member of the Italian anti-fascist resistance and sent to Auschwitz in February, 1944. He somehow managed to survive until the liberation in January, 1945. I was unsurprised to find out he was a scientist before his arrest. He describes his surroundings in a frank, slightly detached way that expects no pity (why would he?). I can only imagine that was how he was able to get through the experience, by assigning himself to the role of observer. An observer has a purpose, a reason to survive, and his reason was to write this memoir.

Every sentence of this memoir is powerful, but I was particularly struck with this line, which nails the banality of evil so chillingly: "We had expected something more apocalyptic; they seemed simple police agents." I sometimes question my consumption of books like this in the interest of protecting my own emotional health, but this memoir isn't misery porn. 

Levi's story is an incredibly inspirational one. God, literature is so fucking noble and awesome, Levi was able to win a second battle against the Nazis here (the first battle was surviving in the first place).

 RATING: *****

Interesting Facts:

The German edition contains a preface addressed to the German people, which Levi said he wrote out of passionate necessity to remind them what they had done.

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