Primo Levi

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Primo Michele Levi (born July 31, 1919 in Turin ; † April 11, 1987 ibid) was an Italian writer and chemist . He is best known for his work as a witness and survivor of the Holocaust . In his autobiographical account, Is That a Human? he recorded his experiences in Auschwitz concentration camp . He also wrote under the pseudonym Damiano Malabaila . Primo Levi himself was not religious, although he showed great interest in Jewish culture and tradition. After his cruel experiences, he no longer believed in the existence of a god.

Early years

Primo Levi grew up in a liberal Jewish family in Turin. From 1934 he attended the Liceo classico Massimo d'Azeglio, a humanistic grammar school that was known for the anti-fascist attitude of many of its teachers, most of whom, however, had already been removed from school service. In 1937 Levi enrolled at the University of Turin for chemistry. In 1938 the Italian fascist government passed a race law that forbade Jewish citizens from attending state schools and colleges. Nevertheless, Levi managed to graduate with honors in 1941. However, the note "of Jewish race" was to be found on the diploma.

World War II and Auschwitz

In autumn 1943, after the armistice of the Badoglio government , the liberation of the deposed Mussolini by the SS and the establishment of a fascist remnant state in northern Italy, Levi joined the anti-fascist resistance, the Resistancea . In October he and some comrades tried to join a partisan group of the liberal movement "Giustizia e Libertà" (Justice and Freedom) in the mountains of the Aosta Valley . According to the Italian historian Sergio Luzzatto , Levi was involved in the shooting of other partisans during this time, which Levi himself mentions as an "ugly secret" in his autobiography. However, due to their military inexperience, they were caught by fascist militias on December 13, 1943. Given the alternative of either being shot on the spot as a partisan or being deported as a Jew , Levi admitted his Jewish ancestry and was then taken to the Fossoli concentration camp near Modena , which was specially set up for Jews . On February 22, 1944, Levi was deported to Auschwitz in a transport from the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) . Of the 650 women, men and children on this train who arrived at Auschwitz on February 26, 1944, 95 men and 29 women were registered as prisoners and sent to the camp after the selection . The remaining 526 people were murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau . When he was liberated, the 630 men and women who were deported there with him were no longer alive.

As a 24-year-old forced laborer, Levi spent eleven months in Auschwitz-Monowitz for an IG Farben factory that produced synthetic rubber until it was liberated by the Red Army . Since he was employed as a chemist in the Buna works , he was able to avoid the worst working conditions in the winter of 1944/45. Nevertheless, he fell ill with scarlet fever a few days before the camp was liberated and was transferred to the so-called “infirmary”, where medical care was hardly available at that time, so that his chances of survival were very slim.

Through luck - part of this happiness seems to have been the deep friendship with his friend Lorenzo, whom he met in captivity and to whom he remained grateful throughout his life - and by chance, however, he survived the illness and through it escaped the death marches of the SS fleeing from the Red Army - Civic. Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945. Nevertheless, Levi was only able to return to Turin on October 19, after being sent by his liberators on a confused journey in trains across Central and Eastern Europe, almost to Minsk in Belarus. Immediately after his return he began to write down his experiences in Auschwitz and to give them literary expression. The first of his two autobiographical reports, Is that a human? , appeared in 1947, and followed in 1963 Die Breather .

Levi wrote about Lorenzo: “But Lorenzo was human. His humanity was pure and untouched. Thanks to Lorenzo it was granted to me that I did not forget to be human myself ... I think that I owe it to Lorenzo if I am still among the living today. Not so much because of the material support, but because with his presence, with his quiet and simple way of being good, he constantly reminded me that a just world still existed outside of ours: things and people that are still pure and intact, not corrupted and not brutalized, far from hatred and fear; something very difficult to define, a distant possibility of the good, for which it is at least worth preserving one's life. "

The time after the Second World War

Back in Italy, Primo Levi initially began to work as a writer only on the side. Until 1977 he worked full-time as a chemist again. After retiring from scientific work, he devoted himself entirely to writing. While he was still alive, he received various literary prizes such as the Premio Strega and the Premio Campiello . On April 11, 1987, he died from falling into the stairwell of his house. Due to a lack of evidence, it is unclear how this fall came about. On the one hand, it is believed that Levi committed suicide . On the other hand, testimonies and circumstances suggest that it was an accident that was facilitated by medication.

Literary work

His autobiographical report Se questo è un uomo (1947, Is that a person? ), In which he describes his experiences in Auschwitz and tries to trace the civilization breach of the targeted dehumanization of the victims, became known worldwide since the second edition in 1958. In the immediately following, also autobiographical report La Tregua. ( The respite ) he describes the odyssey of his months-long journey through the Ukraine and Belarus until his return to Italy and his view of a war-torn Europe that he crossed on this journey.

Primo Levi reading (1960)

The collection of short stories The Periodic System is also autobiographical , in which he skilfully tells episodes from his life: each of the 21 chapters is named after one of the chemical elements whose properties he relates to an episode in his life. The book, published in 1975, was voted "Best Popular Science Book of All Time" by the London Imperial College in October 2006 in a public vote.

A number of stories, on the other hand, seem to be pure fiction, as well as the rather picaresque story of a well-traveled technician in The Ring Key . In the extensive partisan novel When, if not now? Historical traditions are adapted very freely, but these works also reflect more or less clearly experiences and episodes from the author's life.

In his last book, Die Untergoeten und die Geretteten , published half a year before his death in 1986, Primo Levi returns to his formative Auschwitz experience after 40 years and reflects in a haunting manner on the repressions and distortions in the memory of the Contemporary witnesses, the murderers as well as the prisoners, about the oppressive "gray area" between perpetrators and victims, about the "shame" of those who survived the concentration camp by chance and luck, about the varied terror in everyday camp life, about the special situation of intellectuals in Auschwitz and in general on the need to bear witness and remember "the greatest crime in the history of mankind".

He expressly emphasizes (and this is what the distinction between the “drowned” and the “saved” in the title refers to): “We, the survivors, are not the real witnesses. This is an uncomfortable insight that I have slowly come to realize as I have read the memories of others and reread my own after a period of years. We survivors are not only an infinitesimally small but also an abnormal minority; we are the ones who, because of neglect of duty, because of their skill or luck, have not touched the deepest point of the abyss. Anyone who touched him could not return to report, or he became mute. ”The book is considered Primo Levi's legacy, in which he once again succinctly summarizes the topics of his life. In the end, he quotes and comments on a number of letters he received from German readers of his Auschwitz book in the 1960s: the majority of them are documents of the repressed or divided sense of guilt of contemporaries of the Holocaust.

Works

  • Se questo è un uomo , 1947, new edition 1958 ( Is that a person? Translated by Heinz Riedt . Fischer, Frankfurt 1961; New edition Hanser, Munich 1987, dtv 1992, ISBN 3-423-11561-0 )
  • La tregua , 1963 ( The respite , transl. Barbara and Robert Picht . Wegner, Hamburg 1964; new edition Fischer, Frankfurt 1982; Hanser, Munich 1988; dtv 1994, ISBN 3-423-11779-6 )
  • Storie naturali , 1966 (stories, under the pseudonym Damiano Malabaila; The doubling of a beautiful lady and other surprises , transl. Heinz Riedt. Wegner, Hamburg 1968; dtv 1975, ISBN 3-423-01109-2 )
  • Vizio di forma , 1971 (Stories. The Measure of Beauty [selection, supplemented by stories from the previous volume], transl. Heinz Riedt, Joachim Meinert. Hanser, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-446-18939-4 )
  • Lilít e altri racconti , 1971 ( The friend of man. Stories. Translated by Heinz Riedt, Barbara Kleiner . Hanser, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-446-15035-8 ; dtv 1995, ISBN 3-423-12062-2 )
  • Il sistema periodico , 1975 ( The periodic system , trans. Edith Plackmeyer. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 1979; Hanser 1987; dtv 1991, ISBN 3-423-11334-0 ; SZ-Bibliothek 48, 2005, ISBN 3-937793-47- X )
  • La chiave a stella , 1978 ( The ring spanner . Transl. Barbara Kleiner. Hanser, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-446-14552-4 ; Wagenbach, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-8031-2275-9 )
  • Se non ora, quando? , 1982 ( When, if not now? Translated by Barbara Kleiner. Hanser, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-446-13842-0 ; dtv, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-423-11117-8 )
  • Ad ora incerta , 1984 (Poems. At an uncertain hour . Translated by Moshe Kahn . Hanser, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-446-15885-5 )
  • L'altrui mestiere , 1985 ( Other people's professions. Glossaries and miniatures. Transl. Barbara Kleiner. Hanser, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-446-20477-6 )
  • Racconti e saggi , 1986 ( The third page. Essays and stories. Translated by Hubert Thüring, Michael Kohlenbach. Stroemfeld / Roter Stern, Basel 1992, ISBN 3-87877-394-3 )
  • I sommersi ei salvati , 1986 ( The drowned and the rescued . Translated by Moshe Kahn. Hanser, Munich 1990 ISBN 3-446-15144-3 ; dtv 1993, ISBN 3-423-11730-3 )

Posthumously published:

  • Ferdinando Camon, Conversazione con Primo Levi , 1991 ( "I'm looking for a solution, but I can't find it": Primo Levi in ​​conversation with Ferdinando Camon . Translated by Joachim Meinert. Piper, Munich 1993)
  • Conversazioni e interviste 1963–1987 . Ed. Marco Belpoliti , 1997 ( Conversations and interviews . Translated by Joachim Meinert. Hanser, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-446-19788-5 )
  • Cosi fu Auschwitz. Testimonianze 1945–1986 , 2015 ( This was Auschwitz. Testimonies 1945–1986. With Leonardo De Benedetti . Translated by Barbara Kleiner. Hanser, Munich 2017 ISBN 978-3-446-25449-7 )
  • Io che vi parlo , 2016 ( I who speak to you. Interview with Giovanni Tesio . Translator: Monika Lustig. Afterword Maike Albath . Secession Verlag für Literatur, Zurich 2017, ISBN 978-3-906910-06-2 )

Film adaptations

Biographies

Graphic novels

Honors
  • In 2007 a new name was required due to the merger of the Carl-James-Bühring-Oberschule and the Wieland-Herzfelde-Oberschule in Berlin. A decision was made after the school had meanwhile “14. Oberschule Haus A and B "was called, for the name Primo-Levi-Gymnasium .

Trivia

The English songwriter Peter Hammill dedicated the song Primo on the Parapet, which appeared on the album The Noise (1992), to the work of Primo Levi . The title ("parapet" = railing) is an allusion to Levi's death. The metalcore band Heaven Shall Burn dedicated their song If this is a man to Primo Levi , the Danish hardcore band Lack a song with his name as the title. The song Souviens-Toi Du Jour (1999) and the music video produced for it by French artist Mylène Farmer also contains several allusions to Primo Levi and repeats the line et si c'est un homme (and if it's a person) several times .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Astrid Diepes: Days when man was a thing. On the 100th birthday of Primo Levi: After his slave labor experience, he wrote what it really means to be human . In: Schwarzwälder Bote, weekend journal. Cultural life . No. 30 , July 27, 2019.
  2. ↑ Werner Habicht: The literature Brockhaus in 8 volumes. Volume 5, BI-Taschenbuchverlag, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-411-11800-8 , p. 151.
  3. ^ Sergio Luzzatto: Partigia. Feltrinelli 2013.
  4. ↑ Cf. Danuta Czech : Calendar of the events in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp 1939–1945. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1989, p. 730.
  5. ↑ Primo Levi: Is that a human? (From the Italian by Heinz Riedt) . Turin 1997, ISBN 978-3-446-23744-5 , pp. 125-126 .
  6. ↑ Internal: Primo Levi's Last Moments. July 9, 2012, accessed April 17, 2019 .
  7. ^ Günter Kunert : My century book. , Die Zeit , 46, November 1999
  8. ↑ The Guardian: Levi's memoir beats Darwin to win science book title.
  9. ^ Excerpts in: Hans Günther Adler , Hermann Langbein , Ella Lingens-Reiner (eds.): Auschwitz. Certificates and reports. EVA , 2nd ext. Ed. 1979, ISBN 3-434-00411-4 , pp. 243–245 (“The End”), pp. 133–138 (“The Last”).
  10. ↑ Excerpt from: "Dschungel", supplement to jungle world , August 31, 4, 2017, pp. 19-23.
  11. ↑ Press release on the first award
personal data
SURNAME Levi, Primo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Malabaila, Damiano
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian chemist, partisan and writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Turin
DATE OF DEATH April 11, 1987
Place of death Turin