Auschwitz Trilogy Series by Primo Levi

SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ (or If This Is a Man), first published in 1947, is a work by the Italian-Jewish writer, Primo Levi. It describes his arrest as a member of the Italian anti-fascist resistance during the Second World War, and his incarceration in the Auschwitz concentration camp from February 1944 until the camp was liberated on 27 January 1945.

First published in English in 1965, The Reawakening is Primo Levi's bestselling sequel to his classic memoir of the Holocaust, Survival in Auschwitz. The inspiring story of Primo Levi's liberation from the German death camp in January 1945 by the Red Army, it tells of his strange and eventful journey home to Italy by way of the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Romania... moreFirst published in English in 1965, The Reawakening is Primo Levi's bestselling sequel to his classic memoir of the Holocaust, Survival in Auschwitz. The inspiring story of Primo Levi's liberation from the German death camp in January 1945 by the Red Army, it tells of his strange and eventful journey home to Italy by way of the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Romania. Levi's railway travels take him through bombed-out cities and transit camps, with keen insight he describes the former prisoners and Russian soldiers he encounters along the way. An extraordinary account of faith, hope, and undying courage, The Reawakening was praised by Irving Howe as "a remarkable feat of literary craft." less

Primo Levi's account of life as a concentration camp prisoner falls into two parts. "If This is a Man" describes his deportation to Poland and the 20 months he spent working in Auschwitz. "The Truce" covers his journey home to Italy at the end of the war... morePrimo Levi's account of life as a concentration camp prisoner falls into two parts. "If This is a Man" describes his deportation to Poland and the 20 months he spent working in Auschwitz. "The Truce" covers his journey home to Italy at the end of the war.With the moral stamina and intellectual pose of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contemptible. What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable, but also, in THE PERIODIC TABLE and THE WRENCH, his delight in what made the world exquisite to him. He was himself a magically endearing man, the most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known' PHILIP ROTH less

The author tries to understand the rationale behind Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen. Dismissing stereotyped images of brutal Nazi torturers and helpless victims, Levi draws extensively on his own experiences to delve into the minds and motives of oppressors and oppressed alike... moreThe author tries to understand the rationale behind Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen. Dismissing stereotyped images of brutal Nazi torturers and helpless victims, Levi draws extensively on his own experiences to delve into the minds and motives of oppressors and oppressed alike. Describing the difficulty and shame of remembering, the limited forms of collaboration between inmates and SS goalers, the exploitation of useless violence and the plight of the intellectual, Levi writes about the issue of power, mercy and guilt, and their effects on the lives of the ordinary people who suffered so incomprehendingly. less