Modern Heroes: Primo Levi - Survivor, Chemist and Author

I recently found out that some people had never heard of Primo Levi. I have since made it my mission to educate the masses. In Italian schools, Primo Levi's poems and books are an integral part of part of the curriculum, and I grew up venerating the silent yet widely heard man who passed away as I began the cycle of elementary school.
.
Primo Levi was born in Torino (Turin) in 1919. He studied chemistry at the University of Torino, but had trouble presenting his thesis in 1938 because of the discrimination against Jews. He finally managed to graduate in 1941, but with a thesis in physics. His diploma stated "Of the Jewish race".

Professor Levi then began his carrier as a chemist, which brought him to Milan. When pursuing a carrier became impossible because of the war and his ties to the resistance, he worked for the anti-fascist resistance in northern Italy , and was caught in 1943, along with some friends.

Betrayed by a fascist who had been posing as one of Levi's group, Primo reportedly chewed up and swallowed his list of resistance allies. The group was taken to the prison of Fossoli, which was soon taken over by the German troops. As conditions deteriorated, all prisoners were eventually gathered and sent to Auschwitz.
It was February 22, 1944.

"We found out about our destination and this gave us a sense of relief. Auschwitz: the name didn't mean anything to us, at the time" (From: 'If this is a man').

Primo Levi survived the camps, and as a witness he felt he had to write about the absurdity of what went on there. He described the indescribable, so that people would ask themselves why, and examine their conscience . He wrote about his pain in the camp, and about his adventurous way home, in the book 'Se Questo E' un Uomo'- If This is a Man. (Aka Survival in Auschwitz). The book was named after his most famous poem.

What's great about the book is that Primo Levi managed to write objectively, despite having lived through the harrowing trials he described. It was the voice of the observational scientist in him.

He then wrote 'La Tregua'-The Truce,(aka: The Reawakening) and much later: The Drowned and The Saved- 'I Sommersi e I Salvati.'

His book 'The Periodic Table' is a brilliant collection of life situations hidden behind the metaphors of chemical elements, one per essay.

Dr. Levi also authored 'The Monkey's wrench', which followed the fictitious adventures of an Italian steelworker. More than anything else, the book reflects Levi's knowledge of steel rigging and paint chemistry.

Other writings included various scientific articles as well as a column on the then prestigious La Stampa newspaper.

Primo was a communist and an assimilated Jew, as many Jews of Torino still are. In fact, the unfortunate Auschwitz landing was the writer's first encounter with Ashkenazi Jews, speakers of Yiddish and fierce guardians of the Jewish religion. He also had an uncomfortable incident when he traveled to New York on a book tour, only to discover that the locals saw him not as Primo Levi, chemist and holocaust narrator, but as Primo Levi, the Jew and representative of Italian Jews. Primo was thoroughly disoriented by the reception. His Jewish identity had never been an integral part of his life.

In Ian Thompson's biography of Primo Levi, he contests that Levi was often awkward in public, uncertain of his successes and failures and often depressed, this despite his hobby of mountaineering with friends and family. The depression deteriorated over the years and Levi began to take medication.

He committed suicide in 1987, leaping from the top of his third floor staircase.

- -
A translation of Primo Levi's Poem 'If This is a Man' also known as 'Shema', from the prayer 'Shema Yisrael', Hear O Israel.

Shema

You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:

Consider whether this is a man,
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no.
Consider whether this is a woman,
Without hair or name
With no more strength to remember
Eyes empty and womb cold
As a frog in winter.

Consider that this has been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your hearts
When you are in your house, when you walk on your way,
When you go to bed, when you rise.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house crumble,
Disease render you powerless,
Your offspring avert their faces from you.

Translated by Ruth Feldman And Brian Swann