What Is Primo Levi's Survival In Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault On Humanity

One day in September 1942, everyone had to take their belongings and walk five miles to a nearby ghetto in Lubaczow. In the ghetto it was thirty people per room with only five beds, so they had to sleep like sardines. After months in these awful living conditions, they left once again and were sent to a camp called Belzec. At this point there was little hope of survival for Eva and her family. They were loaded on to a cattle train with nearly eighty people in the car. During their journey a little boy on the train ripped the barbed wire in front of the window. This would be the perfect escape route if it weren't for the

Throughout history man successfully found a way to survive in the most harsh conditions even, when all odds were against them. In Ellie Wiesel's memoir Night, Ellie and his father find a way to survive in the most difficult conditions. In the concentration camps Ellie and his father spends years in the face of death, basic survival prevailed over the moral teachings of society.

Everyone experiences emotional and physiological obstacles in their life. However, these obstacles are incomparable to the magnitude of the obstacles the prisoners of the Holocaust faced every day. In his memoir, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, illustrates the horrors of the concentration camps and their mental tool. Over the course of Night, Wiesel demonstrates, that exposure to an uncaring, hostile world leads to destruction of faith and identity.

Primo Levi, in his novel Survival in Auschwitz (2008), illustrates the atrocities inflicted upon the prisoners of the concentration camp by the Schutzstaffel, through dehumanization. Levi describes “the denial of humanness” constantly forced upon the prisoners through similes, metaphors, and imagery of animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization (“Dehumanization”). He makes his readers aware of the cruel reality in the concentration camp in order to help them examine the psychological effects dehumanization has not only on those dehumanized, but also on those who dehumanize. He establishes an earnest and reflective tone with his audience yearning to grasp the reality of genocide.

Primo Levi was a Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor from the concentration Auschwitz. Primo Levi talks about in his book called “Survival in Auschwitz” about what it means to survive. There are many quotes that stand out in his book and have strong importance to them.

The theme of Isolationism was seen throughout Survival in Auschwitz. Germany was isolated from the rest of the world and Levi was isolated from his family, friends and country. Within the camp, each hut was separated from one another and those confined to the infirmary were secluded from the rest. The prisoners themselves both consciously and unconsciously practiced self-isolationism as

Germans crushed the revolt and killed almost all of the prisoners involved in the protest.

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.

Primo Levi’s authenticity in Survival in Auschwitz: If This is a Man has been debated in several contexts. Historians believe it is too biased to be used as evidence of the horrors of the concentration camps, whereas literary critics believe just the opposite, as they argue the bias shows depth into the author’s thoughts and, therefore, the intent of the memoir. Howard Jacobson wrote in his article “Howard Jacobson: Reading If This Is a Man by Primo Levi” that, “Again and again Primo Levi's work is described as indispensable, essential, necessary”(Jacobson). He argues that as generations cease to exist, less and less people are alive to tell the story of the Holocaust.

In his Holocaust memoir Survival In Auschwitz, by Primo Levi recounts the everyday struggles he endured under German enslavement. Surrounded by hate and fear, Levi fights not only to save his life, but more importantly to save his soul. Though he watches his dear friends die under the rule of the Nazi terror, Levi understands that he must separate himself from the masses, and maintain his individuality.

In Survival In Auschwitz, Primo Levi details his experience of life inside of Auschwitz and as a Holocaust survivor. Levi was a twenty-five year old chemist who was involved in the anti-Fascist movement in Italy. In late 1943, Levi was captured and sent to Auschwitz, where he stayed for the remainder of the war. Survival in Auschwitz is a bitter account, drenched and coated in pain, hunger, and cold. Prisoners are gradually dehumanised into Haftlinge who are only concerned with their own existence, and, at times, barely that. Levi describes the endless lengths Haftlinge go to ensure that they keep whatever meagre possessions they have and the vigilant calculations they must make to try to boost their miserable chances of emerging alive. The camps of Auschwitz were labour camps. Levi’s recount of the experience of labour in Auschwitz relates to Karl Marx’s discussion of the levels of estrangement and alienation of labour on many levels.

I told my daughter, Emillia, about the camp that we will be evacuating to due the war that’s happening currently.

Primo Michele Levi (Italian: [ˈpriːmo ˈlɛːvi]; 31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was an Italian Jewish chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of several books, novels, collections of short stories, essays, and poems. His best-known works include If This Is a Man (1947) (U.S.: Survival in Auschwitz), his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland; and his unique work, The Periodic Table (1975), linked to qualities of the elements, which the Royal Institution of Great Britain named the best science book ever written.[1]

During Adolf Hitler’s reign as chancellor and leader of the Nazi party, numerous people suffered daily and struggled to survive under the strict regulations and vigilant watch of the Nazi forces. From the concentration camps to the streets of Germany, constant loss and grief seemed to prevail. Both prisoner and common man must fight and confront their hurdles or risk losing it all. Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi and Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner expose the hardships and stories of the two men during the rise and control of the Nazi party. Levi, an Italian Jew and chemist, was deported to Auschwitz and was forced into the working life of a prisoner. Haffner, an Aryan journalist and law student, lived in Berlin and became engulfed in the manifestation of Nazism. Regardless of different backgrounds and circumstances, both men felt the weight of the nightmare they lived and were confronted with similar obstacles such as a drastic shift in lifestyle, the battle of willpower, and loss of identity through personal ethics. Both men defied odds and lived to tell their tales.

When in the extreme situations such as those created by the two World Wars, humans are often pushed to the brink of both mental and physical. “Survival in Auschwitz”, subtitled and originally titled “If This Is A Man”, is a novel written by Holocaust survivor Primo Levi detailing the measures he took to survive ten months in Auschwitz. Published in 1959, it was written shortly after World War II and serves as a primary source to its events. Contained in those pages are discussions of the human mental condition when stripped of the conditions and items that create a person’s identity and dignity. Upon entry to the concentration camp, all personal effects were taken away - including clothing and shoes. The prisoners were given the camp uniform and shoes with wooden soles. While the first World War asked its soldiers to abandon their personal identity to devote themselves to the cause of their country, Auschwitz demanded that its prisoners give up their personal identity in favor of becoming a cog in the machine of the concentration camp. Within “Survival in Auschwitz”, the concept of what makes a man is questioned and picked apart by Primo Levi.