If This Is a Man

Primo Levi was born in Turin, Italy, in 1919 to a liberal Jewish family. He was trained as a chemist, an anti-Fascist activist, a Holocaust survivor, and a writer.

As a child, Levi was one of the few Jews in school, where he excelled. He specialized in classics at the lyceum (or high school), where he had several anti-Fascist teachers. His father kept him out of the Italian Navy by enrolling him in the Fascist militia; he was a member through his first year of university, until the Italian Racial Laws of 1938 prohibited Jews from being enrolled.

The 1938 Racial Laws, especially after the 1940 Italian alliance with Germany, ended “tolerance” for Jews in Italy. Levi became actively involved in anti-Fascist activism, and he was arrested by the Fascist militia in December 1943 for his political action, though he was sent to Auschwitz not for this political action but for being Jewish.

He spent almost a year in Auschwitz. After being liberated on January 27, 1945, Levi first spent time in a Soviet camp for former concentration camp victims. He then undertook a long, difficult journey back home to Turin, not arriving until October 1945. The Truce, published in 1963, describes this journey home among millions of displaced people.