If This Is a Man

Who it's for

Levi writes about Auschwitz with deliberate, almost scientific restraint, modelled, he said, on concise weekly reports, which lets readers approach unbearable material without being flooded by it.

Feelings it meets

• War
• Oppression
• Moral Injury

What it is

If This Is a Man (published in the US as Survival in Auschwitz) is Primo Levi's memoir, first published in Italian in 1947 and translated into English by Stuart Woolf. It recounts his arrest as an anti-fascist partisan in December 1943 and his imprisonment at Auschwitz-Monowitz from February 1944 until the camp's liberation in January 1945.

Where to find it

In print (often with The Truce, and as Survival in Auschwitz in the US); widely available from libraries (Libby/Hoopla) and as an audiobook. Not public domain.

Before you start

Heads up: Holocaust genocide and mass death.

Age: Ages 16+

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.Wilfred Owen, Poems, “Dulce et Decorum Est”