synopsis:

In Italy during World War Two, young chemist primo Levi, along with the rest of his Jewish community, is interned by his fellow countrymen because of his religion. Levi recounts the events that led up to this and what happened when they were all eventually shipped off to Auschwitz in 'if this is a man'.

The account of his time in Auschwitz is unforgettably poignant, as he talks about the necessity of maintaining the strength to retain one's humanity, about not giving up caring about oneself, whether by washing, eating or thinking. 'if this is a man' is a personal and touching account of one man's survival in a situation that is almost impossible to imagine.'The Truce', which is published in a single volume with 'If This is a Man', is the account of levi's liberation from the camp in January 1945 and the eight month trek across Europe before he reached home. First sent east into Russia, it seemed Levi and his companions would be submerged into the chaos and devastation of Europe at the end of the war, till finally 1,200 Italians boarded a train in Romania for their final journey home.in 'the truce' levi relates how physical torture and annihilation were accompanied by a process of moral degradation. He stresses that survival was as much a spiritual quest to maintain human dignity as a physical struggle.

on this book:

As a survivor of one of the camps that stripped inmates of their essential selves, Primo Levi more effectively, if also more horrifyingly than theoreticians and scholars, reveals the process that reduced men and women to silence and shadows. His scientific training as a chemist is everywhere evident: in his terse expression, in his ability to see relationships among disparate elements, in his dispassionate depiction of evil. As a writer, he is responsible for a body of work that, taken as a whole, constitutes one of the major documents of the Holocaust.'If This is a Man' is generally seen as levi's best book. it is a book about heroes, about men who refused to be reduced to beasts, who somehow found the strength to retain their humanity. To stop caring about yourself, not to wash, to give up, was a death sentence.see also: * "sit down and bargain..."