About this title: Originally entitled, IF THIS IS A MAN, Levi's narrative of his experiences at Auschwitz is unique among Holocaust memoirs for its simplicity, its lack of self-pity, and its objectivity; he often emphasizes not his own sufferings but the many instances of goodness he found among his fellow prisoners. In an appendix, Levi stated: "[I]n writing this ...
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Touchstone
Date Published: 1996-09-01
ISBN-13:9780684826806ISBN:0684826801
Description: Very Good. Very good paperback. Pages are clean and unmarked. One dog ear crease. Covers show very minor shelf wear.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Free Delivery Confirmation! Ships same or next business day! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Touchstone Books
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780684826806ISBN:0684826801
Description: Woolf, Stuart. Very good. No dust jacket as issued. old label on rear cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 192 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Touchstone Books
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780684826806ISBN:0684826801
Description: Good. The Nazi Assault on Humanity Highlighting and underlining throughout. Slight curl to upper & lower corners. Binding is tight. Good reference copy. read more
Description: Good. 0684826801 Book could have shelf wear, or a bump, or sunfade to edges. These are new unread books from the publisher with one of these conditions. See are feedback as customers are satisfied in how we grade our books. Has remainder mark. Fast shipping and customer service is our number 1 priority! read more
Description: Good. 0684826801 Paperback with moderate shelf-wear, rubbing, fraying, tears, fading, chipping and bumping to the cover, edges, corners, and spine. Binding is tight and square. Inside pages are free from underlining, note taking, and/or highlighting, however, the pages have tanned with age. Book is in stock and ready to ship same or next business day. Select Expedited shipping and receive your book within 3-5 business days. Buy with confidence! Please leave feedback after your purchase. It ... read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
"I don't know where to start with this book. It was incredible, Primo just tells his story from his capture through his time at Auschwitz and his eventual freedom in a simple matter of fact prose with no apologies for things either himself or others done and without judging the guards and the so called 'better' prisoners for the way they were.
Primo begins with his capture and journey to the camp in in the first chapter you are hit with the loss of over 500 people upon arrival at the camp, people who are deemed 'unnecessary' and 'worthless' who are sent to the Chimney. As the book progresses the mind-numbing coldness, tiredness and hunger of everyday life in the camps is portrayed in all its horrific repeatativeness. The eventual end of the war comes slowly but surely as the allied bombs and Russian troops edge nearer and nearer but with freedom comes reality and at the close you feel not relief and elation but grief and numbness.
This book is a must read for anyone and everyone, especially those who doubt the Holocaust as no-one can doubt the words found with Primo Levi's account of this horrific period of human history.
The 'interview' between Primo and Phillip Roth was very enlightening and it showed that Primo doesn't hold feelings of hatred or animosity towards those who held him in the camps. He comes across as a relaxed and down to earth man who has dealt with the events of his past and has managed to put them in to context and pass the lessons learnt onto others."
"I read this in my European History class in college, and it was very striking because it's an account of what life was like in Auschwitz from someone who actually survived. It's truly horrifying to see what people can do to fellow human beings, but also somewhat inspiring to see how strong we are as individuals and what human nature can overcome. The truly sad part is that even though Levi "survived" his ordeal in the concentration camp, his spirit couldn't rebound from all he had experienced. There's only so much a person can take, and while some people managed to make it through their time at Auschwitz there were no real survivors. Something like that is impossible to recover from and makes you lose your faith in humanity, and Levi eventually committed suicide rather than live the rest of his life being haunted by his time in Auschwitz."
""We had an incorrigible tendency to see a symbol and a sign in every event." So did my English teacher when she taught this novel to my class and I in November of 2008. Instead of focusing on the radiant objectivity of Levi's narration and the search for self-identification (rather than justification) throughout the book, she chose to dissect practically nonexistent aspects such as the prosody of each paragraph and the reason behind each simile. Such trifles are not what matter in "Survival in Auschwitz," which is why I decided to reread the brutally exploratory memoir during this summer.
I've found that what does matter is that Levi and his fellow men dehumanized into hollow beasts had to embark upon a journey far more difficult than attempting to survive in Auschwitz. Each prisoner had to attempt to find and define themselves as they once were. Many never tried at all; some eventually lost themselves which were never to return, and others like Levi himself blessedly knew to disregard the puzzle of Auschwitz itself and to follow dreadfully but with a sense of hope and strength that would one day allow them to remember that they are indeed men. We, the unknowing, take a tour guided by the unknown via reading this book. We learn of the insane fundamentals of everyday death-camp life without being expected to sympathize or commend. Primo Levi intends for this novel's readers to read and to remember, only so that each story is not forgotten. "Survival in Auschwitz" is also a grand accomplishment in its prose and voice. Each sentence melds itself to you and leaves you feeling either chilly or warm in a way that you will always remember. To quote Saul Bellow, "In Levi's writing, nothing is superfluous and everything is essential.""
"This wonderfully written and very cerebral memoir is often essentially told from two points of view - the victim and the persecutor. Levi does an excellent job of making us both see and feel both sides.
In the other Holocaust memoirs I've read each has related the daily struggle for food as part of their survival, but none has made it so apparent as this book. Levi devotes many, many pages to explain why food was the prisoner's consuming thought. After reading it I think I truly understand how every moment of every day, waking and sleeping, revolved around thoughts of, talk about, the pursuit of, and the physical act of eating.
I also don't think I was aware that Auschwitz was composed of several camps (Birchkenhau being one) and that there were other prisoners (American, Russian, Greek, and British POWs and various political prisoners) in the camp, and that their treatment was different (better, sometimes substantially better) than that received by the Jews.
There are many, many wonderful passages that I loved. The following are a few:
"Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction."
"It is not possible to sink lower than this; no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so. Nothing belongs to us any more; they have taken away our clothes, our shoes, even our hair; if we speak, they will not listen to us, and if they listen, they will not understand. They will even take away our name: and if we want to keep it, we will have to find ourselves the strength to do so, to manage somehow so that behind the name something of us, of us as we were, still remains."
"We Italians had decided to meet every Sunday evening in a corner of the Lager, but we stopped it at once, because it was too sad to count our numbers and find fewer each time, and to see each other ever more deformed and mor squalid."
"He is Null Achtzehn. He is not called anything except that, Zero Eighteen, the last three figures of his entry number; as if everyone was aware that only a man is worthy of a name, and that Null Achzehn is no longer a man."
"And in any case, one knows that they are only here on a visit, that in a few weeks nothing will remain of them but a handful of ashes in some near-by field and a crossed-out number on a register.""
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