If This Is a Man / The Truce

What a book, what a story, should be made compulsory in schools, so sorry he couldn't live with himself for surviving

Clearly printed and legible.

At first, and until he reaches 'The Bottom' If This Is A Man is an almost unbearable read. In fact, I felt sick because although I have read a decent amount about the suffering of the Jews, nothing I have read has quite captured the utter despair and wretchedness of being sent into the pit of hell in such a defeated, but dignified, manner. There is no attempt to describe the squalid minutiae of the privations suffered by the deportees; instead, Levi focuses, at times as though disconnected, on the humiliation, the deprivation and the complete dulling of the senses. But, from 'The Bottom', Levi outlines how the strong survived, how there was more than luck in surviving the constant hunger and work and selections, and the ways that certain prisoners triumphed through their ingenuity. He understands what a man has to do to live, and only once does he really, really judge a prisoner triumphing in his luck at escaping selection, when he wishes God would spit on the spared man's prayers. Throughout the whole book, Levi never tries (I suppose he doesn't have to!)to invoke pity, he just tries to make you understand life and death in the Lager. This is the true beauty of If This Is A Man. It spares you much of the gore and the filth and the madness - it just explains it all quietly, relatively dispassionately and with such humanity. It's a beautiful read written by a beautiful and intelligent man. You must read this.

Se Questo è un Uomo (If This Is A Man) is without a doubt one of the best and most important Holocaust books ever written. You cannot praise the late Primo Levi enough and admire his strength and endurance throughout his life. (And don't just stop with this book, read his others as well). However, that being said, after reading the original version in Italian and then reading this, it is a very poor translation. In his native Italian, his usage of Italian grammar alone shows just how tired he was (both in the camps and recounting his story later). Something that is no doubt difficult to reproduce in a translation. But also stylistically there is poetry in his original Italian words, rather than this interpretation which I feel is a bit explanatory; simple. I'm not saying it's not a fantastic story - if you do not speak or read Italian, by all means read this, you will love it (and hate it just for what it represents) but comparative to its original it falls far short. Read the Italian version if you are able - how Levi intended it to be read.

A real struggle to get thru the first half of this book, not because it was badly written but the sheer horror that it describes. I thought I knew about the holocaust, but no, I knew the bare facts and not the day to day hell of life in the concentration camps. Levi brings you to the labour camp with him and you experience it with him, almost literally. Its far worse than anyone can imagine. In the struggle to pick the book back up each time, I felt that because Primo Levi had put this down in writing, it was my duty to read it and then recommend others to read it. Its a story that must be told, again and again. Its horrifying, but its true. A great book is the wrong way of describing it, its a life-changing book.

Paperback arrived [pro0mkptly and in good conditio0n. Looks like quite small print but invitingl. Aas described.

Very good

In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I have read what is probably the most famous memoir from a survivor. If This is a Man is, however, rather different from other such memoirs I have read, as its theme is not so much the detail of his lived experiences, or particular atrocities (though these are of course covered), but what Auschwitz and the Holocaust represented - in the author's words, "the demolition of man": "Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself."; and "if I could enclose all the evil of our time in one image, I would choose this image which is familiar to me: an emaciated man, with head dropped and shoulders curved, on whose face and in whose eyes not a trace of a thought is to be seen." Notwithstanding these bleak quotes, I did not find this memoir bleak, as throughout his year at Auschwitz, Levi survives by never losing an ultimate belief in human dignity and hope, though, paradoxically, "our wisdom lay in ‘not trying to understand’, not imagining the future, not tormenting ourselves as to how and when it would all be over; not asking others or ourselves any questions." The book ends with the Nazi abandonment of Auschwitz and the notorious death march (which Levi avoided only by virtue of being ill with scarlet fever at the time) culminating, after a ten day period of further struggling with the forces of cold, hunger and disease, with the Red Army liberating the camp on 27 January 1945. My edition was paired with its sequel the somewhat longer The Truce, which details the author's lengthy enforced peregrinations across eastern and central Europe to eventually get home well into the autumn of 1945. This is less immediately memorable as a read, but does contain descriptions of the many colourful characters of different nationalities with whom he makes his itinerant life. Finally, the book ends with the author providing lengthy answers to some of the most common questions he was asked in the post-war period by audiences to whom he spoke about his books and his experiences, to ensure the events of the Holocaust remained alive in the minds of succeeding generations as: "Strong though the words of If This is a Man are, they are still weak before the will to deny or forget."

J'ai lu ce livre pour la première fois dans ma langue maternelle, l'italien, à l'age de 16 ans. J'en ai été bouleversée. Je l'ai été encore plus lors du suicide de son auteur, acte totalement en désaccord avec ce qu'il avait écrit. J'ai acheté ce livre en anglais pour en faire cadeau à un ami ashkénaze qui n'en connaissait pas l'existence, pour qu'il comprenne qu'il y avait dans les camps une réalité encore plus terrible que peu de rescapés racontent ....

A truly wonderful book by a great author. In this volume you get Levi's If This Is a Man, his story of his trials in one of the satellite camps of Auschwitz, and The Truce, the story of his long journey from Auschwitz back home to Turin. In the "Afterword" included with this edition (Abacus edition of 1987) you also have Levi's answers to the questions his readers had posed to him over the years. These are also revealing. I've read many books about the Holocaust and WWII. I could not put this one down. I picked this up after reading Levi's The Periodic Table (also excellent). Here, Levi bears witness to the horrors of the Lager system of Nazi Germany. He is very specific about bearing witness. This is not a history or a commentary, though he does give his opinions. You can't call this a memoir really: it is testimony. In The Truce, he describes the long, strange journey he took back to Italy, through Poland, Russia, Bjelorus, Ukraine, Rumania, Hungary, Austria, and Germany, in the care of, mostly, the Russians. This is also a fascinating tale and follows on naturally: If This Is a Man ends with the arrival of the Russians to liberate the Auschwitz Lager and you want to know how he gets home and gets on with his life. Levi was a master story teller. You just want to keep reading and hear what will happen next. He was obviously a very intelligent man. These books are very restrained and humane, towards all the people in them, even the evil-doing Germans. Levi states that he does not want revenge and doesn't hate the Germans. His concern was that civilized people everywhere do not allow this to happen again. (We've let him down there: Cambodia, Myanmar, Rwanda, The Balkans, Darfur, ...) I've read numerous books on the Holocaust, and I find some of them just too tough (emotionally) to read (especially after my kids came along), for example The Nazi Doctors. Levi tells you the bad stuff but somehow makes it bearable and a thoroughly wonderful read. When I finished this book, I was very moved by my admiration for the humanity of Levi (not to mention the wonderful writing.) I kept repeating to myself, "that was a real man ..." Too bad we lost him at such a young age.

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It goes without saying that books and articles about the Holocaust need to be treated very carefully and with tremendous respect. IF THIS IS A MAN by Primo Levi is like this. This literary experience opens in a truly remarkable manner. It is at once incredibly moving, and immediately horrifying. You canâ(tm)t read more than a handful of pages (or paragraphs, or lines of text even) without feeling overwhelmed and helpless and offended in the most extreme way possible. Conversely, phrases of note are come across early in the book, and the reader may well find themselves thinking how well that sentence was penned and how nicely it sits in the readerâ(tm)s mind. And in the next heartbeat, you may well admonish yourself for finding joy and discovering anything of note or pleasure in the words that describe such a terrible, terrible place. Chapter one is given the title, â(tm)THE JOURNEYâ(tm) and chapter two is called, â(tm)ON THE BOTTOMâ(tm). The opening salvo leaves the reader with a feeling of impending doom (bordering on terror) but chapter two has a much greater emotional impact. Chapter three shows that some prisoners held on to hope longer than others; indeed, the bookâ(tm)s narrator appears to have lost all hope by the start of chapter four. He meets up with a friend from BEFORE who blesses the reader with this delightful quote (taken from location 635 of the kindle version) in answer to the question of why waste time and effort keeping yourself clean with soap when all signs of personal and soulful hygiene are lost within a few seconds of stepping beyond the washroom? âae... We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last â" the power to refuse our consent...â ITIAM is an extraordinary reading experience; and it is a hideous reading experience. You donâ(tm)t really know what to think, and you donâ(tm)t really know where to look. Truth has the peculiar habit of sneaking up on you and staring you right in the face. All you can do is stare back. Think. Question. Resolve. ----------------- April 25, 2015 and the book is finished. As I approach its finale, and as Levi returns home, I come across quotes of text that approach literary highlights and significant moments of the tome itself. I won't quote them here, but I have no doubt you will discover them yourself. For example look at kindle locations 5492 to 5495, and also 5506. What a book. What an experience. What a nightmare. ---------------------

A moving first-hand account of the Auschwitz survivor. Primo Levi, the chemist from Turin was one of the three from group of 650 who survived. This is actually two books- The first (If this is a man) describes his experiences while at Auschwitz while the second (The Truce) is his journey back home after being liberated. As a reader you will be numbed reading his hellish experience and the systematic degradation human beings were subjected to. Through a Q&A section in the end he tries to address some of the question’s readers may have after having read the book. The book will disturb you and force you to question- How could this really happen?