Primo Michele Levi (July 31, 1919 – April 11, 1987) was a Jewish Italian chemist, Holocaust survivor and author of memoirs, short stories, poems, and novels.He is best known for his work on the Holocaust, and in particular his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in Auschwitz, the infamous death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. If This Is a Man (published in the United States as Survival in Auschwitz) has been described as one of the most important works of the twentieth century.
Levi was born in Turin on July 31, 1919 at Corso Re Umberto 75 into a liberal Jewish family. His father Cesare worked for the manufacturing firm Ganz and spent much of his time working abroad in Hungary, where Ganz was based. Cesare was an avid reader and autodidact. Levi’s mother Ester, known to everyone as Rina, was well educated, having attended the Instituto Maria Letizia. She too was an avid reader, played the piano and spoke fluent French.[2] The marriage between Rina and Cesare was arranged by Rina’s father.[3] On their wedding day, Rina’s father, Cesare Luzzati, gave Rina the apartment at Corso Re Umberto where Primo Levi was to live for almost his entire life.
In 1921 Primo’s sister Anna Maria was born. Primo was to remain close to his sister all his life. In 1925 he entered the Felice Rignon primary school in Turin. A thin and delicate child, he was shy and thought himself ugly, but he excelled academically. His school record includes long periods of absence during which time he was tutored at home at first by Emilia Glauda and then by Marisa Zini, daughter of philosopher Zino Zini.[4] Summers were spent with his mother in the Waldensian valleys southwest of Turin where Rina rented a farmhouse. His father remained in Turin partly because of his dislike of the rural life, but also because of his infidelities.[5]
In September 1930 he entered the Massimo d'Azeglio Royal Gymnasium a year ahead of normal entrance requirements.[6] In class he was the youngest, the shortest and the cleverest as well as being the only Jew. For these reasons, he was bullied.[7] In August 1932, following two years at the Talmud Torah school in Turin, he sang in synagogue for his Bar Mitzvah. In 1933, as was expected of all young Italian schoolboys, he joined the Avanguardisti movement for young Fascists. He avoided rifle drill by joining the ski division, and then spent every Saturday during the season on the slopes above Turin.[8] As a young boy Levi was plagued by illness, particularly chest infections, but he was keen to participate in physical activity. In his teens he and a few of his friends would sneak into a disused sports stadium and conduct athletic competitions.
In July 1934 at the age of 14, he sat his exams for the Massimo d'Azeglio liceo classico, a Lyceum (sixth form) specialising in the classics and was admitted in the autumn. The school was noted for its well-known anti-Fascist teachers, amongst them Norberto Bobbio, and for a few months Cesare Pavese, also an anti-Fascist and later to become one of Italy's best-known novelists.[9] Levi continued to be bullied during his time at the Lyceum although he was now in a class with six other Jews.[10] On reading Concerning the Nature of Things by Sir William Bragg it was during this time that Levi decided that he wanted to be a chemist.[11] Levi matriculated from the school in 1937 despite being accused of ignoring a call-up to the Italian Royal Navy the week before his exams were due to begin. As a result of this incident, and possibly some antisemitic bias in the marking, Levi had to retake his Italian paper. At the end of the summer he passed his exams and in October he enrolled at the University of Turin, to study chemistry. The registered intake of eighty hopefuls spent three months taking lectures in preparation for their colloquio or oral examination when the eighty would be reduced to twenty. The following February Levi graduated onto the full-time chemistry course.
Although Italy was a Fascist country, and antisemitism took place, there was little real discrimination towards Jews in the 1930’s. As Italy was historically one of the most assimilated Jewish societies, the gentile Italians, up until the outbreak of hostilities, either ignored or subverted any racial laws which they saw as being imposed by the Germans. This all changed in July 1938 when the Fascist government introduced racial laws which, amongst other things, prohibited Jewish citizens from attending state schools. Jewish students who had begun their course of study were permitted to continue it, but new Jewish students were barred from entering university. It was therefore fortuitous that Levi had matriculated a year early, otherwise he would not have been permitted to take a degree.
In 1939 Levi began his love affair with hiking in the mountains.[12] His friend Sandro Delmaestro taught him how to hike and they spent many week-ends in the mountains above Turin. Physical exertion, the risk and the battle with the elements here supplied him with an outlet for all the frustrations in his life. In June 1940 Italy declared war against Britain and France, and the first air raids on Turin began two days later. Levi’s studies continued during the bombardments, and an additional strain on the family was imposed when his father became bedridden with bowel cancer.
However because of the antisemitic laws, and the increasing intensity of prevalent Fascism, Levi had difficulty finding a supervisor for his graduation thesis which was on the subject of Walden inversion, a study of the asymmetry of the carbon atom. Eventually taken on by Dr. Nicolo Dallaporta he graduated in the summer of 1941 with full marks and merit, having submitted additional theses on X Rays and Electrostatic Energy. His degree certificate bore the remark, "of Jewish race". The racial laws prevented Levi from finding a suitable permanent position after he had graduated.
In December 1941 Levi was approached and clandestinely offered a job at an asbestos mine at San Vittore. The project he was given was to extract nickel from the mine spoil, a challenge he accepted with pleasure. It was not lost on Levi that should he be successful he would be aiding the German war effort, which was suffering nickel shortages in the production of armaments.[13] The job required Levi to work under a false name with false papers. In March 1942 while he was working at the mine Levi’s father died.
In June 1942, due to the deteriorating situation in Turin, Levi left the mine and went to work in Milan. He had been recruited through a fellow student at Turin University who was now working for the Swiss firm of A Wander Ltd on a project to extract an anti-diabetic from vegetable matter. He could take the job because the racial laws did not apply to Swiss companies. It soon became clear that the project had no chance of succeeding, but it was in no one's interest to say so.[14]
In September 1943, after the Italian government under Marshal Pietro Badoglio signed an armistice with the Allies, the former leader Benito Mussolini was rescued from imprisonment by the Germans and installed as head of the Italian Social Republic, a puppet state in German-occupied northern Italy. Levi returned home to Turin to find his mother and sister having taken refuge in their holiday home La Saccarello in the hills outside Turin. They all then embarked to Saint-Vincent in the Aosta Valley where they could be hidden. Being pursued by the authorities they moved up the hillside to Amay in the Colle di Joux. Amay was on the route to Switzerland that was followed by Allied soldiers and refugees trying to escape the Germans. The Italian resistance movement became increasingly active in the German-occupied zone. Levi and a number of comrades took to the foothills of the Alps and in October joined the liberal Giustizia e Libertà partisan movement. Completely untrained for such a venture, he and his companions were quickly arrested by the Fascist militia. When told he would be shot as a partisan, he confessed to being Jewish and was then sent to an internment camp for Jews at Fossoli near Modena. Primo Levi's writings archived at Yad Vashem indicate that that as long as Fossoli was under Italian, rather than Nazi German control, he was not harmed. "We were given, on a regular basis, a food ration destined for the soldiers," Levi's testimony stated, "and at the end of January 1944, we were taken to Fossoli on a passenger train. Our conditions in the camp were quite good. There was no talk of executions and the atmosphere was quite calm. We were allowed to keep the money we had brought with us and to receive money from the outside. We worked in the kitchen in turn and performed other services in the camp. We even prepared a dining room, a rather sparse one, I must admit."
In 1921 Primo’s sister Anna Maria was born. Primo was to remain close to his sister all his life. In 1925 he entered the Felice Rignon primary school in Turin. A thin and delicate child, he was shy and thought himself ugly, but he excelled academically. His school record includes long periods of absence during which time he was tutored at home at first by Emilia Glauda and then by Marisa Zini, daughter of philosopher Zino Zini.[4] Summers were spent with his mother in the Waldensian valleys southwest of Turin where Rina rented a farmhouse. His father remained in Turin partly because of his dislike of the rural life, but also because of his infidelities.[5]
In September 1930 he entered the Massimo d'Azeglio Royal Gymnasium a year ahead of normal entrance requirements.[6] In class he was the youngest, the shortest and the cleverest as well as being the only Jew. For these reasons, he was bullied.[7] In August 1932, following two years at the Talmud Torah school in Turin, he sang in synagogue for his Bar Mitzvah. In 1933, as was expected of all young Italian schoolboys, he joined the Avanguardisti movement for young Fascists. He avoided rifle drill by joining the ski division, and then spent every Saturday during the season on the slopes above Turin.[8] As a young boy Levi was plagued by illness, particularly chest infections, but he was keen to participate in physical activity. In his teens he and a few of his friends would sneak into a disused sports stadium and conduct athletic competitions.
In July 1934 at the age of 14, he sat his exams for the Massimo d'Azeglio liceo classico, a Lyceum (sixth form) specialising in the classics and was admitted in the autumn. The school was noted for its well-known anti-Fascist teachers, amongst them Norberto Bobbio, and for a few months Cesare Pavese, also an anti-Fascist and later to become one of Italy's best-known novelists.[9] Levi continued to be bullied during his time at the Lyceum although he was now in a class with six other Jews.[10] On reading Concerning the Nature of Things by Sir William Bragg it was during this time that Levi decided that he wanted to be a chemist.[11] Levi matriculated from the school in 1937 despite being accused of ignoring a call-up to the Italian Royal Navy the week before his exams were due to begin. As a result of this incident, and possibly some antisemitic bias in the marking, Levi had to retake his Italian paper. At the end of the summer he passed his exams and in October he enrolled at the University of Turin, to study chemistry. The registered intake of eighty hopefuls spent three months taking lectures in preparation for their colloquio or oral examination when the eighty would be reduced to twenty. The following February Levi graduated onto the full-time chemistry course.
Although Italy was a Fascist country, and antisemitism took place, there was little real discrimination towards Jews in the 1930’s. As Italy was historically one of the most assimilated Jewish societies, the gentile Italians, up until the outbreak of hostilities, either ignored or subverted any racial laws which they saw as being imposed by the Germans. This all changed in July 1938 when the Fascist government introduced racial laws which, amongst other things, prohibited Jewish citizens from attending state schools. Jewish students who had begun their course of study were permitted to continue it, but new Jewish students were barred from entering university. It was therefore fortuitous that Levi had matriculated a year early, otherwise he would not have been permitted to take a degree.
In 1939 Levi began his love affair with hiking in the mountains.[12] His friend Sandro Delmaestro taught him how to hike and they spent many week-ends in the mountains above Turin. Physical exertion, the risk and the battle with the elements here supplied him with an outlet for all the frustrations in his life. In June 1940 Italy declared war against Britain and France, and the first air raids on Turin began two days later. Levi’s studies continued during the bombardments, and an additional strain on the family was imposed when his father became bedridden with bowel cancer.
However because of the antisemitic laws, and the increasing intensity of prevalent Fascism, Levi had difficulty finding a supervisor for his graduation thesis which was on the subject of Walden inversion, a study of the asymmetry of the carbon atom. Eventually taken on by Dr. Nicolo Dallaporta he graduated in the summer of 1941 with full marks and merit, having submitted additional theses on X Rays and Electrostatic Energy. His degree certificate bore the remark, "of Jewish race". The racial laws prevented Levi from finding a suitable permanent position after he had graduated.
In December 1941 Levi was approached and clandestinely offered a job at an asbestos mine at San Vittore. The project he was given was to extract nickel from the mine spoil, a challenge he accepted with pleasure. It was not lost on Levi that should he be successful he would be aiding the German war effort, which was suffering nickel shortages in the production of armaments.[13] The job required Levi to work under a false name with false papers. In March 1942 while he was working at the mine Levi’s father died.
In June 1942, due to the deteriorating situation in Turin, Levi left the mine and went to work in Milan. He had been recruited through a fellow student at Turin University who was now working for the Swiss firm of A Wander Ltd on a project to extract an anti-diabetic from vegetable matter. He could take the job because the racial laws did not apply to Swiss companies. It soon became clear that the project had no chance of succeeding, but it was in no one's interest to say so.[14]
In September 1943, after the Italian government under Marshal Pietro Badoglio signed an armistice with the Allies, the former leader Benito Mussolini was rescued from imprisonment by the Germans and installed as head of the Italian Social Republic, a puppet state in German-occupied northern Italy. Levi returned home to Turin to find his mother and sister having taken refuge in their holiday home La Saccarello in the hills outside Turin. They all then embarked to Saint-Vincent in the Aosta Valley where they could be hidden. Being pursued by the authorities they moved up the hillside to Amay in the Colle di Joux. Amay was on the route to Switzerland that was followed by Allied soldiers and refugees trying to escape the Germans. The Italian resistance movement became increasingly active in the German-occupied zone. Levi and a number of comrades took to the foothills of the Alps and in October joined the liberal Giustizia e Libertà partisan movement. Completely untrained for such a venture, he and his companions were quickly arrested by the Fascist militia. When told he would be shot as a partisan, he confessed to being Jewish and was then sent to an internment camp for Jews at Fossoli near Modena. Primo Levi's writings archived at Yad Vashem indicate that that as long as Fossoli was under Italian, rather than Nazi German control, he was not harmed. "We were given, on a regular basis, a food ration destined for the soldiers," Levi's testimony stated, "and at the end of January 1944, we were taken to Fossoli on a passenger train. Our conditions in the camp were quite good. There was no talk of executions and the atmosphere was quite calm. We were allowed to keep the money we had brought with us and to receive money from the outside. We worked in the kitchen in turn and performed other services in the camp. We even prepared a dining room, a rather sparse one, I must admit."
When Fossoli fell into the hands of the Germans, the Jews were rounded up for deportation. On February 21, 1944, the inmates of the camp were transported to Auschwitz in twelve cramped cattle trucks. Levi spent eleven months there 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.
Levi knew some German from reading German publications on chemistry; he quickly oriented himself to life in the camp without attracting the attention of the privileged inmates; he used bread to pay a more experienced Italian prisoner for German lessons and orientation in Auschwitz; and he received a smuggled soup ration each day from Lorenzo Perrone, an Italian civilian bricklayer. His professional qualifications were also useful: in mid-November 1944 he was able to secure a position as an assistant in the Buna laboratory that was intended to produce synthetic rubber, thereby avoiding hard labour in freezing outdoor temperatures. Shortly before the camp was liberated, he fell ill with scarlet fever and was placed in the camp's sanatorium. In mid-January 1945 the SS hurriedly evacuated the camp as the Red Army approached, forcing all but the gravely ill on a long death march that led to the death of the vast majority of the remaining prisoners. Levi's illness spared him this fate.
Although liberated on 27 January 1945, Levi did not reach Turin until 19 October of that year. After spending some time in a Soviet camp for former concentration camp inmates, he embarked on an arduous journey home in the company of former Italian prisoners of war from the Italian Army in Russia. His long railway journey home to Turin took him on a circuitous route from Poland, through Russia, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany.
Levi knew some German from reading German publications on chemistry; he quickly oriented himself to life in the camp without attracting the attention of the privileged inmates; he used bread to pay a more experienced Italian prisoner for German lessons and orientation in Auschwitz; and he received a smuggled soup ration each day from Lorenzo Perrone, an Italian civilian bricklayer. His professional qualifications were also useful: in mid-November 1944 he was able to secure a position as an assistant in the Buna laboratory that was intended to produce synthetic rubber, thereby avoiding hard labour in freezing outdoor temperatures. Shortly before the camp was liberated, he fell ill with scarlet fever and was placed in the camp's sanatorium. In mid-January 1945 the SS hurriedly evacuated the camp as the Red Army approached, forcing all but the gravely ill on a long death march that led to the death of the vast majority of the remaining prisoners. Levi's illness spared him this fate.
Although liberated on 27 January 1945, Levi did not reach Turin until 19 October of that year. After spending some time in a Soviet camp for former concentration camp inmates, he embarked on an arduous journey home in the company of former Italian prisoners of war from the Italian Army in Russia. His long railway journey home to Turin took him on a circuitous route from Poland, through Russia, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany.
Levi was almost unrecognisable on his return to Turin. Malnutrition oedema had bloated his face. Sporting a scrawny beard and wearing an old Red Army uniform he arrived back at Corso Re Umberto. The next few months gave him an opportunity to recover physically, re-establish contact with surviving friends and family and to start looking for work. However, Levi was understandably suffering from psychological trauma. Having been unable to find work in Turin he started to look for work in Milan. On his train journeys he started to tell people he met stories about his time at Auschwitz. At a Jewish New Year party in 1946 he met Lucia Morpurgo who offered to teach him to dance. Levi fell in love with Lucia. At about this time he started writing poetry about his experiences in the Lager.
On January 21, 1946 he started work at DUCO, a Du Pont Company paint factory, outside Turin. As the train service out to the factory was so limited Levi stayed in the factory dormitory during the week, which gave him the opportunity to write undisturbed. It was here that he started to write down the first draft of If This is a Man[15]. Every day he would scribble down notes on train tickets and scraps of paper as memories came to him. At the end of February he had ten pages detailing the last ten days between the German evacuation and the arrival of the Red Army. For the next ten months the book took shape in his dormitory as he typed up his recollections each night.
On December 22, 1946 the manuscript was complete. Lucia, who now reciprocated Primo’s love, helped him to edit it, to make the narrative flow more naturally[16]. In January 1947 Primo was taking the finished manuscript around publishers, but the wounds he were describing were still too fresh and he had no literary experience to give him a reputation as an author.
Eventually Levi found a publisher, Franco Antonicelli, through a friend of his sister’s[17]. Antonicelli was an amateur publisher, but as an active anti-Fascist he was supportive of the idea of the book. At the end of June 1947, Levi suddenly left DUCO and teamed up with an old friend Alberto Salmoni to run a chemical consultancy from the top floor of Salmoni’s parent’s house. Many of Levi’s experiences of this time found their way into his later writing. They made most of their money from making and supplying stannous chloride for mirror makers[18], delivering the unstable chemical by bicycle across the city. The attempts to make lipsticks from reptile excreta and a coloured enamel to coat teeth were turned into short stories. Accidents in their laboratory filled the Salmoni house with vile smells and corrosive gases.
In September 1947 Primo married Lucia and a month later on the 11th October If This is a Man was published with a print run of 2000 copies. In April 1948, with Lucia pregnant with their first child, Primo decided that the life of an independent chemist was too precarious and agreed to go and work for Federico Accatti in the family paint business which traded under the name SIVA. In October 1948 Levi’s first child, his daughter Lisa, was born.
Although life was definitely improving there were still painful incidents in his life, particularly when one of his friends from Auschwitz was in trouble or had died. Lorenzo Perrone was the man to whom Levi owed most. His story is well told in If This is a Man, but without Lorenzo bringing Primo soup every day, at great personal risk, Levi was unlikely to have survived the Lager. After the war Lorenzo could not cope with the memories of what he saw and descended into living rough and alcoholism. Levi made several trips to rescue his old friend from the streets, but in 1952 Lorenzo died as a result of the lack of self-care[19].
In 1950, having demonstrated his ample chemical talents to Accatti he was made Technical Director at SIVA[20]. As SIVA’s principal chemist and trouble shooter Levi travelled abroad. He made several trips to Germany and carefully engineered his contacts with senior German businessmen and scientists. Wearing short sleeved shirts he made sure they saw his prison camp number tattooed on his arm, and he engaged them on the depravity of the Nazis and the lack of redemption sought by most Germans, many of whom at that time had been involved in the exploitation of slave labour.
He was also involved in organisations pledged to remembering the horror of the camps. In 1954 he visited Buchenwald to mark the 9th anniversary of the camps liberation from the Nazis. There were many such anniversaries over the years and Levi dutifully attended them to tell and retell his memories. In July 1957 his son Renzo was born, almost certainly named after his saviour Lorenzo Perrone.
Despite a positive review by Italo Calvino in L'Unità, only 1,500 copies of If This is a Man were sold. Levi had to wait till 1958 before Einaudi published it, in a revised form.
In 1958 Stuart Woolf, in close collaboration with Levi, translated If This is a Man into English and it was published in the UK in 1959 by Orion Press. Also in 1959 Heinz Riedt, also under close supervision by Levi[21], translated it into German. As one of Levi’s primary reasons for writing the book was to get the German nation to realise what had been done in its name, and to accept at least partial responsibility, this translation was perhaps the most significant.
On January 21, 1946 he started work at DUCO, a Du Pont Company paint factory, outside Turin. As the train service out to the factory was so limited Levi stayed in the factory dormitory during the week, which gave him the opportunity to write undisturbed. It was here that he started to write down the first draft of If This is a Man[15]. Every day he would scribble down notes on train tickets and scraps of paper as memories came to him. At the end of February he had ten pages detailing the last ten days between the German evacuation and the arrival of the Red Army. For the next ten months the book took shape in his dormitory as he typed up his recollections each night.
On December 22, 1946 the manuscript was complete. Lucia, who now reciprocated Primo’s love, helped him to edit it, to make the narrative flow more naturally[16]. In January 1947 Primo was taking the finished manuscript around publishers, but the wounds he were describing were still too fresh and he had no literary experience to give him a reputation as an author.
Eventually Levi found a publisher, Franco Antonicelli, through a friend of his sister’s[17]. Antonicelli was an amateur publisher, but as an active anti-Fascist he was supportive of the idea of the book. At the end of June 1947, Levi suddenly left DUCO and teamed up with an old friend Alberto Salmoni to run a chemical consultancy from the top floor of Salmoni’s parent’s house. Many of Levi’s experiences of this time found their way into his later writing. They made most of their money from making and supplying stannous chloride for mirror makers[18], delivering the unstable chemical by bicycle across the city. The attempts to make lipsticks from reptile excreta and a coloured enamel to coat teeth were turned into short stories. Accidents in their laboratory filled the Salmoni house with vile smells and corrosive gases.
In September 1947 Primo married Lucia and a month later on the 11th October If This is a Man was published with a print run of 2000 copies. In April 1948, with Lucia pregnant with their first child, Primo decided that the life of an independent chemist was too precarious and agreed to go and work for Federico Accatti in the family paint business which traded under the name SIVA. In October 1948 Levi’s first child, his daughter Lisa, was born.
Although life was definitely improving there were still painful incidents in his life, particularly when one of his friends from Auschwitz was in trouble or had died. Lorenzo Perrone was the man to whom Levi owed most. His story is well told in If This is a Man, but without Lorenzo bringing Primo soup every day, at great personal risk, Levi was unlikely to have survived the Lager. After the war Lorenzo could not cope with the memories of what he saw and descended into living rough and alcoholism. Levi made several trips to rescue his old friend from the streets, but in 1952 Lorenzo died as a result of the lack of self-care[19].
In 1950, having demonstrated his ample chemical talents to Accatti he was made Technical Director at SIVA[20]. As SIVA’s principal chemist and trouble shooter Levi travelled abroad. He made several trips to Germany and carefully engineered his contacts with senior German businessmen and scientists. Wearing short sleeved shirts he made sure they saw his prison camp number tattooed on his arm, and he engaged them on the depravity of the Nazis and the lack of redemption sought by most Germans, many of whom at that time had been involved in the exploitation of slave labour.
He was also involved in organisations pledged to remembering the horror of the camps. In 1954 he visited Buchenwald to mark the 9th anniversary of the camps liberation from the Nazis. There were many such anniversaries over the years and Levi dutifully attended them to tell and retell his memories. In July 1957 his son Renzo was born, almost certainly named after his saviour Lorenzo Perrone.
Despite a positive review by Italo Calvino in L'Unità, only 1,500 copies of If This is a Man were sold. Levi had to wait till 1958 before Einaudi published it, in a revised form.
In 1958 Stuart Woolf, in close collaboration with Levi, translated If This is a Man into English and it was published in the UK in 1959 by Orion Press. Also in 1959 Heinz Riedt, also under close supervision by Levi[21], translated it into German. As one of Levi’s primary reasons for writing the book was to get the German nation to realise what had been done in its name, and to accept at least partial responsibility, this translation was perhaps the most significant.
Levi died on April 11, 1987, when he fell from the interior landing of his third-story apartment in Turin to the ground floor below, leading to speculation that he had killed himself. Elie Wiesel said at the time that "Primo Levi died at Auschwitz forty years earlier."
Principal biographers (Angier, Thomson, Anissimov) agree with the coroner's verdict that Levi committed suicide. In his later life Levi indicated he was suffering from depression: factors may have included responsibility for his elderly mother and mother-in-law, living in the same apartment, concerns for his own health and memory, and genetic disposition.
However, Oxford sociologist Diego Gambetta has made a detailed case [3] that the conventional assumption of Levi's death by 'suicide' is not well justified by either factual or inferred evidence. Levi left no suicide note, and no other clear indication of an intended attempt on his own life; documents and testimony, rather, indicate immediate and ongoing plans at the time of his death. The likelihood of an accident is itself bolstered by clear circumstantial evidence. Quoting Rita Levi Montalcini, Levi's close friend: "If Levi wanted to kill himself he, a chemical engineer by profession, would have known better ways than jumping into a narrow stairwell with the risk of remaining paralyzed." Also, Gambetta reveals that Levi had complained to his physician of dizziness in the days before his death, and Gambetta concludes (from a visit to the apartment complex) that it's much more plausible to assume Levi lost his balance and fell accidentally to his death.[31]
The importance of Levi's manner of death is historical in that his work, much of which openly personal in content, is commonly interpreted as a powerful affirmation of life in the face of organised forces of war and brutality: thus whether he died by accident or by intent has been seen to imply a final comment on the validity of his own essentially affirmative message. Wiesel's interpretation has to date been accepted: whether this is factually based or a romanticised premise requires further research.
Principal biographers (Angier, Thomson, Anissimov) agree with the coroner's verdict that Levi committed suicide. In his later life Levi indicated he was suffering from depression: factors may have included responsibility for his elderly mother and mother-in-law, living in the same apartment, concerns for his own health and memory, and genetic disposition.
However, Oxford sociologist Diego Gambetta has made a detailed case [3] that the conventional assumption of Levi's death by 'suicide' is not well justified by either factual or inferred evidence. Levi left no suicide note, and no other clear indication of an intended attempt on his own life; documents and testimony, rather, indicate immediate and ongoing plans at the time of his death. The likelihood of an accident is itself bolstered by clear circumstantial evidence. Quoting Rita Levi Montalcini, Levi's close friend: "If Levi wanted to kill himself he, a chemical engineer by profession, would have known better ways than jumping into a narrow stairwell with the risk of remaining paralyzed." Also, Gambetta reveals that Levi had complained to his physician of dizziness in the days before his death, and Gambetta concludes (from a visit to the apartment complex) that it's much more plausible to assume Levi lost his balance and fell accidentally to his death.[31]
The importance of Levi's manner of death is historical in that his work, much of which openly personal in content, is commonly interpreted as a powerful affirmation of life in the face of organised forces of war and brutality: thus whether he died by accident or by intent has been seen to imply a final comment on the validity of his own essentially affirmative message. Wiesel's interpretation has to date been accepted: whether this is factually based or a romanticised premise requires further research.
Álmodtunk vad éjszakákon Vad, megemészthetetlen álmokat,
Lélekkel és testtel megálmodottakat:
Hazatérni; enni; mesélni.
-Primo Levi-
A fiatal vegyész Primo Levi számára a koncentrációs táborból hazatérve a "mesélés", a tanúságtétel alapszükségletté vált, az otthonnal és a táplálkozással került egy szintre. Nem mintha úgy gondolta volna, hogy megakadályozható lenne egy újabb orület, hiszen éppen ellenkezoleg, a fentiekben idézett 1946-os verse - késobb a Fegyvernyugvás címu regénye mottója lett - így fejezodik be: "Hamarosan újra halljuk / Az idegen parancsot: / "Wstawaæ"", hanem azért, mert a túlélo feladatát akarta teljesíteni: tanúskodni akart. Kertész Imre Sorstalanság címu regényének recenzióiban gyakran hivatkoznak Primo Levi írásaira, hiszen o a holokausztirodalom legismertebb olasz képviseloje. Abban, hogy ilyen nagy olvasótábora lett, természetesen szerepet játszott a közönség "fogadókészsége", a múlttal való számvetés igénye is. Az olasz zsidóságból a második világháborúban mintegy 7000-en pusztultak el deportálásban. Sokan mások náci razziák, kivégzések áldozatai lettek. A kor kutatója, a történész De Felice nem tud pontos adatot mondani róluk. Ugyanakkor mintegy 27 000-re teszi azoknak a számát, akiket a legkülönbözobb társadalmi réteghez tartozó magánszemélyek vagy vallásos rendek, közösségek bújtattak, valamint akik át tudtak jutni Svájcba, vagy partizánként részt vettek az ellenállásban és sikerült megmenekülniük. (Primo Levi partizán volt, amikor elfogták.)
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