A review by tgnewman
If This Is a Man by Primo Levi

challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.5

General Overview

A frank and wonderfully clear book, Primo Levi’s If This is a Man, is a short account of his time in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. From his arrival to leaving during the collapse of the Nazi Reich, it is a must read for those looking for accounts of this great horror. 

Style

Written in a loose chronological order, Mr Levi makes it clear from the start that for the most part he endeavoured to write those bits of his story that he felt had most meaning first. This was in order to ensure he remembered them most accurately. 

It is the day to day language of the brutality of it all that struck me the most in his retelling. The scenes and people he portrays feel oh so normal and human, but what he describes is as he well puts it, a hell. 

As readable as it is grim, If This is a Man would be easy for anyone to read, if they can stomach the reality in which this book was written. 

Substance

Covering from his time of capture in Italy, through to his arrival in Auschwitz, and discovering what he must do to survive, we read throughout of Primo Levi, those he met, and how the horrors of the Death Camp worked. 

Meeting a variety of people, we are shown the great swath of those in the camp. The many doomed to be lost and die, those who adapted to survive, and even some who looked to profit. 

His journey through life in the camp is one of brutal realities. Of bitter cold winters, of starvation, and of fear. It is the fear for himself that is shown throughout. 

The end covers the fleeing of the Nazis from the camp, and his role in the aftermath, caring for those left behind. 

It is a gripping story from start to finish. It is a story we must know. It is one we cannot see happen again. 

Final Thoughts

A grim read that must be read to better understand the realities of Auschwitz, and what those forced behind its barbed wire walls had to do to survive. Primo Levi does well to tell his tale. You must read  it.