Monday, September 14, 2026

reviews: If This Is A Man byPrimo Levi

Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: If This Is A Man/The Truce: 'Miraculous' Philippe Sands

If This Is A Man/The Truce: 'Miraculous' Philippe Sands
byPrimo Levi



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Customer reviews
4.7 out of 5 stars



365 customer reviews
From Australia

Greggorio!
5.0 out of 5 stars THINK. QUESTION. RESOLVE.
Reviewed in Australia on 16 April 2015
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
It goes without saying that books and articles about the Holocaust need to be treated very carefully and with tremendous respect. IF THIS IS A MAN by Primo Levi is like this. This literary experience opens in a truly remarkable manner. It is at once incredibly moving, and immediately horrifying. You canâ(tm)t read more than a handful of pages (or paragraphs, or lines of text even) without feeling overwhelmed and helpless and offended in the most extreme way possible. Conversely, phrases of note are come across early in the book, and the reader may well find themselves thinking how well that sentence was penned and how nicely it sits in the readerâ(tm)s mind. And in the next heartbeat, you may well admonish yourself for finding joy and discovering anything of note or pleasure in the words that describe such a terrible, terrible place.

Chapter one is given the title, â(tm)THE JOURNEYâ(tm) and chapter two is called, â(tm)ON THE BOTTOMâ(tm). The opening salvo leaves the reader with a feeling of impending doom (bordering on terror) but chapter two has a much greater emotional impact. Chapter three shows that some prisoners held on to hope longer than others; indeed, the bookâ(tm)s narrator appears to have lost all hope by the start of chapter four. He meets up with a friend from BEFORE who blesses the reader with this delightful quote (taken from location 635 of the kindle version) in answer to the question of why waste time and effort keeping yourself clean with soap when all signs of personal and soulful hygiene are lost within a few seconds of stepping beyond the washroom?

âae... We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last â" the power to refuse our consent...â

ITIAM is an extraordinary reading experience; and it is a hideous reading experience. You donâ(tm)t really know what to think, and you donâ(tm)t really know where to look. Truth has the peculiar habit of sneaking up on you and staring you right in the face. All you can do is stare back.

Think.

Question.

Resolve.

-----------------

April 25, 2015 and the book is finished. As I approach its finale, and as Levi returns home, I come across quotes of text that approach literary highlights and significant moments of the tome itself. I won't quote them here, but I have no doubt you will discover them yourself. For example look at kindle locations 5492 to 5495, and also 5506.

What a book. What an experience. What a nightmare.

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Alex
5.0 out of 5 stars That was a lot
Reviewed in Australia on 8 July 2021
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An honor to read the words of this wise, caring and gentle soul. Unspeakable things made clearer in the hope of never forgetting.
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Fred
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a man
Reviewed in Australia on 8 May 2025
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The only if that one is left with after reading this book is if this is humanity then a nobler spirit is at work.
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Bruce
4.0 out of 5 stars this has been the best by far
Reviewed in Australia on 1 June 2015
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While the number of books I have read would fit into a relatively small bookcase, this has been the best by far.
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Cherry Randolph
5.0 out of 5 stars essential reading
Reviewed in Australia on 15 February 2025
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Stunning in content (literally) yet immensely readable. Let every person read this account and reflect what it means to be human.
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Vivienne Golabek
5.0 out of 5 stars The story if human endurance
Reviewed in Australia on 30 June 2020
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Loved this book just so insightful it broke my heart to tea.
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Jim KABLE
5.0 out of 5 stars For These 21st Century Times
Reviewed in Australia on 3 May 2019
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The demagoguery of Trump - and of others like the Australian LNP trio of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison and the almost-Dutton - have already led to things which Primo Levy has extrapolated out of his Auschwitz existence - and survival. The confected hatred spewed by Trump - and the Democrats - against Julian Assange and against Russia - and China - the imperial march of the US military right around the world - tells us that the dreadful things done by the Nazis to Jews, Roma, Trade Unionists, Socialists, those disabled in some way and others if difference are once again becoming commonplace. In my native Australia we now - arms twisted - "host" US military bases and "exercises" and incarcerate unto death asylum-seekers and Indigenous Australians and others labelled in various ways. Primo Levi was indeed a man - one of the best - and thank God for him!
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Best ever
Reviewed in Australia on 11 April 2019
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Excellent read. Brilliant and real
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Australia on 19 April 2016
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Great book. Should be read by everyone.
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Ballina Beach
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Australia on 20 July 2015
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Extraordinary and powerful story. Humbling. Everyone should read this story.
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kdf
5.0 out of 5 stars Se questo è un uomo
Reviewed in France on 7 February 2012
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I first read this book in my native language, Italian, at the age of 16. I was overwhelmed by it. I was even more so when the author committed suicide, an act that was totally in disagreement with what he had written.
I bought this book in English as a gift to an Ashkenazi friend who did not know about its existence, so that he could understand that there was an even more terrible reality in the camps that few survivors tell...
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sw
5.0 out of 5 stars Objectively heartbreaking
Reviewed in Spain on 3 April 2026
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All of his books should be put on the list for required reading before leaving school - the most important lesson to be learnt!
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marina & Paul
5.0 out of 5 stars Un must
Reviewed in Italy on 4 May 2025
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Dovrebbe venire letto da tutti
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Michael I.
5.0 out of 5 stars Survival and Liberation
Reviewed in the United States on 17 November 2013
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IF THIS IS A MAN is the British title of what was curiously published in the US as SURVIVING AUSCHWITZ. This edition is divided between Levi’s story of survival in the camp and, in THE TRUCE, his circuitous journey from Auschwitz back to his home in Turin. I’m dividing my review into corresponding halves.

IF THIS IS A MAN - With spare but lively prose, Levi recounts his deportation, confinement, and improbable survival within Auschwitz. No matter how dispiriting his situation, Levi never stoops to outright hopelessness. There’s something between the words that glows. He creates a tableau of barbarism and humanity enmeshed within each other. The characters he draws are intensely vivid and precisely rendered. This book deserves its place in the canon. In Levi, humanity found someone to record our darkest chapter, someone who can transport a reader with descriptions such as “[T]he Buna is desperately and essentially opaque and grey. The huge entanglement of iron, concrete, mud, and smoke is the negation of beauty…Within its bounds, not a blade of grass grows, and the soil is impregnated with the poisonous saps of coal and petroleum, and the only things alive are the machines and slaves - and the former more alive than the latter.” Has anything so dark been illuminated with such delicate, flawless language? IF THIS IS A MAN will endure, and outlive all of us. It’s a book that brings out the spirit of what it means to be alive amid so much death. It explores the fundamental truths that will always (eventually) triumph over our darker inner natures. This is a book you’ll return to again and again.

THE TRUCE - The companion piece in this volume reveals Levi’s slow, tortuous journey back to freedom. It’s a fascinating read. We think of history in connected blocks - e.g. WWII ended when Germany capitulated, end of story - but there’s much more to it, as Levi reveals. Just because the Russians had chased the SS from the death camps didn’t mean the survivors’ ordeal was over. Europe smoldered, and confusion had settled atop the ruins. Levi still has to form alliances and find food. This book doesn’t have as many breathtaking moments as IF THIS IS A MAN, but it’s still an important work. It’s easy to forget that history is actually countless small, individual stories that cohere into something larger. THE TRUCE brings out those small moments among people who were at the mercy of history, but, thanks to Primo Levi, have been memorialized and rendered immortal. Their stories survive.
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Curatorofmemories
5.0 out of 5 stars Holocaust memoir
Reviewed in India on 15 January 2021
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A moving first-hand account of the Auschwitz survivor. Primo Levi, the chemist from Turin was one of the three from group of 650 who survived. This is actually two books- The first (If this is a man) describes his experiences while at Auschwitz while the second (The Truce) is his journey back home after being liberated. As a reader you will be numbed reading his hellish experience and the systematic degradation human beings were subjected to. Through a Q&A section in the end he tries to address some of the question’s readers may have after having read the book. The book will disturb you and force you to question- How could this really happen?
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Speedy Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Honour this man ...........
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 June 2015
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A deeply humbling experience. We should all read this quiet account by Primo Levi, a young Jewish Italian chemist, who bore witness to the unspeakable horrors of incarceration in Monowitz-Buna, one of several camps which were collectively 'Auschwitz'. His youth and fitness spared him from extermination.
Segregation - 'How old? Healthy or ill? - Thus, in an instant, our women, our parents, our children disappeared.'
'Indifferent SS men with faces of stone behaved with the calm assurance of people doing their normal duty of every day. A man staying an instant too long to say goodbye to his fiancée was knocked with a single blow to the ground. It was their everyday duty ............'
And so it began. They arrive at the camp. A brightly lit sign over the door reads Arbeit Macht Frei - work gives freedom.
Four days without water has given them a hideous thirst but a sign in the vast empty room, above the only tap reads Wassertrinken Verboten. He sees the sign as a joke for 'they' know we are dying of thirst - so he drinks but the water is tepid and sweetish with the smell of a swamp.
'This is hell. Today, in our times, hell must be like this. ......... a huge empty room with a tap which drips while we cannot drink the water, and we wait for something which will certainly be terrible, and nothing happens and nothing continues to happen. What can one think about? One cannot think any more, is like being already dead. .......... The time passes drop by drop.
Later. Naked, shorn, stripped and tattooed he says - 'Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he love, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs,
forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself. He will be a man whose life or death can be lightly decided with no sense of human affinity, in the most unfortunate of cases, on the basis of a pure judgement of utility. It is in this way that one can understand the double sense of the term 'extermination camp', and it is now clear what we seek to express with the phrase: 'to lie on the bottom'.
I have not used my own words but those of Primo Levi to describe his manuscript, for that is what this book is - it would be insulting to his erudition, his dignity and courage. He survived the hell of the holocaust, living to tell the tale that the world must never forget.
I urge you to read this book and then read it again to make quite sure it is seared in your memory. It is the very least we can all do to honour Primo Levi.

'This is hell. Today, in our times, hell must be like this ...... we are tired, standing on our feet, with a tap which drips
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Renate Jacobsohn
5.0 out of 5 stars Klassik
Reviewed in Germany on 18 May 2025
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Eine Geschichte die immer das Herz trifft.
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Ann Lenchak
5.0 out of 5 stars an important novel set in historical truth
Reviewed in Canada on 26 May 2026
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An important novel set in historical truth.
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ルーク
4.0 out of 5 stars I bought this for "If This Is A Man" but stayed for "The Truce."
Reviewed in Japan on 8 May 2022
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Like me, you are probably interested in this because it's a survivor's account of life at a Nazi labor camp. This book is titled "If This Is A Man" however this book contains a second story called "The Truce".

I am not going to talk about If This Is A Man because it's what you expect, a sad depressing story that is bleak from beginning to end. Instead I wanted to talk about The Truce because it is not what I expected, it took me by surprise. The premise is that this details the authors liberation from the camp and journey home. As you might expect this too is sad as the author is struggling to adjust to freedom and comprehend what has happened to him and so many others as well as trying to physically recover from his weakened state.

What I did not expect from The Truce and what compels me to write this review is that although against a depressing context, the journey the author makes is one of the most beautiful things I have read if not the most beautiful. It's not the most well written but as the author travels back home he details his visits to many locations and the many people he meets and these people he meet are so memorable. Some are hilarious, there were moments of genuine laughter like the inspector who loves driving his motorcycle in the kitchen or the author's friend who gets the attention of potential customers at a market by calling them names. Other honorable mentions would also be The Greek and the guy who claims to have saved a ship captain from a man eating plant. There were also moments of the author being able to enjoy things once more such as cooking chicken with friends by a road or watch a movie at a cinema.

Once again, The Truce is sad but there are moments of happiness and comedy that make it wonderful to read about people surviving The Labor camps, who continue to live, exist and defy what the Nazi's had set out to do. There are moments of comedy, adventure, sadness, thought provoking and the fact that this is fact and not fiction make it even more special and in some ways magical. It's inspirational because it makes me too want to go out, discover many things, learn many things and meet as many interesting people as possible just like the author of this book.
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Deborah Shayne
5.0 out of 5 stars If This is a Man
Reviewed in Italy on 7 April 2019
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One of the classics Italian literature. Beautifully written and a memorable account of a journey to Hell and back.
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J. Blilie
5.0 out of 5 stars A Really Great and Important Book
Reviewed in the United States on 29 February 2008
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A truly wonderful book by a great author. In this volume you get Levi's If This Is a Man, his story of his trials in one of the satellite camps of Auschwitz, and The Truce, the story of his long journey from Auschwitz back home to Turin. In the "Afterword" included with this edition (Abacus edition of 1987) you also have Levi's answers to the questions his readers had posed to him over the years. These are also revealing.

I've read many books about the Holocaust and WWII. I could not put this one down. I picked this up after reading Levi's The Periodic Table (also excellent). Here, Levi bears witness to the horrors of the Lager system of Nazi Germany. He is very specific about bearing witness. This is not a history or a commentary, though he does give his opinions. You can't call this a memoir really: it is testimony. In The Truce, he describes the long, strange journey he took back to Italy, through Poland, Russia, Bjelorus, Ukraine, Rumania, Hungary, Austria, and Germany, in the care of, mostly, the Russians. This is also a fascinating tale and follows on naturally: If This Is a Man ends with the arrival of the Russians to liberate the Auschwitz Lager and you want to know how he gets home and gets on with his life.

Levi was a master story teller. You just want to keep reading and hear what will happen next. He was obviously a very intelligent man. These books are very restrained and humane, towards all the people in them, even the evil-doing Germans. Levi states that he does not want revenge and doesn't hate the Germans. His concern was that civilized people everywhere do not allow this to happen again. (We've let him down there: Cambodia, Myanmar, Rwanda, The Balkans, Darfur, ...)

I've read numerous books on the Holocaust, and I find some of them just too tough (emotionally) to read (especially after my kids came along), for example The Nazi Doctors. Levi tells you the bad stuff but somehow makes it bearable and a thoroughly wonderful read.

When I finished this book, I was very moved by my admiration for the humanity of Levi (not to mention the wonderful writing.) I kept repeating to myself, "that was a real man ..." Too bad we lost him at such a young age.
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Jonathan
5.0 out of 5 stars A history gem...
Reviewed in Canada on 5 December 2016
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Read If This is A Man for a University project, the goal was to analyse its content while paying specific attention to the message liberated by the author. It's a fantastic read, written with full truth from Primo Levi, one of the fortunate Jewish prisoner to have survived nearly a full calendar year in Nazi Germany's notorious work camp, Auschwitz-Monowitz. Don't expect to read about Nazi ideology, because this book is just the opposite of it. Primo writes of the things he's seen while living at the camp, not what he has heard of. You'll find unique stories about his camp comrades; the daily life, and ''skills'' required in order to survive the horrendous horrors of the camp.
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Harini
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read!
Reviewed in India on 7 November 2020
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This is a book that has to be read in every generation. This history should not be forgotten, for it should not be repeated ever.
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SH
5.0 out of 5 stars An important book to read
Reviewed in Germany on 14 September 2019
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A very hard book to read but something that should be mandatory in later schoolyears. The book shows us what horrible things we are capable off and is a good reminder to build strength and integrity in ourself and those around us.
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Lectura fácil
Reviewed in Spain on 21 March 2025
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Mark David
5.0 out of 5 stars If you doubt Auschwitz was a death camp, try to read this...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 August 2026
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This should almost be a compulsory read, especially for those who doubt the facts of the Holocaust. Primo Levi's description of his journey and time at Auschwitz, his survival and his long, complex return to Turin, Italy, after the liberation of Auschwitz on 27th January 1945 are both compelling and moving.
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John Hopper
5.0 out of 5 stars vital memoir
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 February 2020
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In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I have read what is probably the most famous memoir from a survivor. If This is a Man is, however, rather different from other such memoirs I have read, as its theme is not so much the detail of his lived experiences, or particular atrocities (though these are of course covered), but what Auschwitz and the Holocaust represented - in the author's words, "the demolition of man": "Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself."; and "if I could enclose all the evil of our time in one image, I would choose this image which is familiar to me: an emaciated man, with head dropped and shoulders curved, on whose face and in whose eyes not a trace of a thought is to be seen." Notwithstanding these bleak quotes, I did not find this memoir bleak, as throughout his year at Auschwitz, Levi survives by never losing an ultimate belief in human dignity and hope, though, paradoxically, "our wisdom lay in ‘not trying to understand’, not imagining the future, not tormenting ourselves as to how and when it would all be over; not asking others or ourselves any questions." The book ends with the Nazi abandonment of Auschwitz and the notorious death march (which Levi avoided only by virtue of being ill with scarlet fever at the time) culminating, after a ten day period of further struggling with the forces of cold, hunger and disease, with the Red Army liberating the camp on 27 January 1945.

My edition was paired with its sequel the somewhat longer The Truce, which details the author's lengthy enforced peregrinations across eastern and central Europe to eventually get home well into the autumn of 1945. This is less immediately memorable as a read, but does contain descriptions of the many colourful characters of different nationalities with whom he makes his itinerant life. Finally, the book ends with the author providing lengthy answers to some of the most common questions he was asked in the post-war period by audiences to whom he spoke about his books and his experiences, to ensure the events of the Holocaust remained alive in the minds of succeeding generations as: "Strong though the words of If This is a Man are, they are still weak before the will to deny or forget."
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BrianH
4.0 out of 5 stars Well written and very moving
Reviewed in France on 13 February 2014
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Excellent first-hand account of a concentration camp and subsequent journey back to Italy. Gives a very good sense of th every day live in a camp and deprivations experienced. A book of hope.
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Pruthy2
5.0 out of 5 stars Primo Levi mentions a Hungarian: Bela.
Reviewed in Canada on 22 December 2013
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I purchased the book because my family thought that the Bela mentioned by the author may have been my uncle Bela, a chemical engineer who did not return from Auschwitz. The description does not match my uncle but the novel is a riveting story of the experience of Primo Levy there.

Later I have read the "Truce" in a more detached fashion and really enjoyed the style of the author, the description of the actions of a large variety of people in a way that made me feel I knew them better than many of the poeple who surround me. i admire the understanding of the motivation of people of different backgrounds, under high stress conditions, when the strength of character, inteligence, hummanistic values or their lack relate clearly to their actions.
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R. M. Peterson
5.0 out of 5 stars 174517
Reviewed in the United States on 11 April 2011
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That was the number tattooed on Primo Levi's left arm when he was processed into Auschwitz in February 1944. The numbers were assigned in sequence, so by the time Levi arrived in Auschwitz there were few with tattoos of only five digits. In that sense - the sense of being a relatively late arrival - Levi was fortunate. And because Levi, through chance and no doubt through a certain spunk, was able to survive the next year (one of only three who eventually returned home out of 650 in his consignment of Italian Jews), the world is fortunate. Because his memoir of his year at Auschwitz is probably the most significant first-person account of that vile episode of human history.

As many have noted, what distinguishes Levi's account is his restraint, his near superhuman effort to confine his memoir to the perspective of a witness. Although he lapses occasionally, Levi tried to avoid "the lamenting tones of the victim [as well as] the irate voice of someone who seeks revenge." Thus, his memoir has a documentary objectivity that makes it even more chilling.

This particular edition actually contains two of Levi's memoirs. The first, IF THIS IS A MAN, is the memoir described above - the account of his year at Auschwitz, the most harrowing period (ironically) being the post-apocalyptic ten days between the flight of the Nazis and the arrival of the Red Army. (The only prisoners the Nazis left in the camp were those too sick to be marched westwards, towards Germany. Levi, suffering from an attack of scarlet fever, was among the ill left behind. During those ten days, the percentage of corpses on the bunks inside some of the huts rose to fifty percent. Outside the huts, "the number of ravens had increased considerably and everybody knew why.") The second memoir, THE TRUCE, is Levi's account of the nine months between liberation by the Red Army and his arrival home, at last, in Turin, Italy. It is a fascinating and instructive kaleidoscopic picture of the displaced peoples throughout Eastern Europe in the months immediately following the collapse of Nazi Germany. Although not quite the essential document that IF THIS IS A MAN is, it too is well worth reading. This edition also contains, as an afterword, fifteen pages in which Levi addresses some of the questions frequently asked him, such as "Have you forgiven them [the Germans?]?" and "How can the Nazis' fanatical hatred of the Jews be explained?".

For those who don't know, the title of the first memoir, the classic one, comes from a poem Levi wrote, also entitled "If This Is a Man". It includes these lines:

Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who does not know peace
Who fights for a scrap of bread
Who dies because of a yes or no.

Those five lines sum up this remarkable book, one that should be read by everyone who considers himself civilized.
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Michelle J.
5.0 out of 5 stars Great gift for war aficionados
Reviewed in Germany on 1 March 2021
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Made a great birthday gift for my husband who loves watching war movies and reading books about the World Wars.
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Tanmoy Mukherjee
5.0 out of 5 stars The best book
Reviewed in India on 12 February 2020
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Today I have got this one...the condition of the book is excellent! Thank u AMAZON!!!
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Kermit
4.0 out of 5 stars For class
Reviewed in Spain on 19 January 2022
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Caro
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ma-muc
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended
Reviewed in Germany on 12 June 2017
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This book makes thoughtful, it is absolutely and definitely worth reading! Anyone who is interested in history, and especially in the latest German history, can absolutely not get around this book. It's exciting, exciting, and very well written.
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Ali
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, poor translation
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 January 2013
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Se Questo è un Uomo (If This Is A Man) is without a doubt one of the best and most important Holocaust books ever written. You cannot praise the late Primo Levi enough and admire his strength and endurance throughout his life. (And don't just stop with this book, read his others as well). However, that being said, after reading the original version in Italian and then reading this, it is a very poor translation. In his native Italian, his usage of Italian grammar alone shows just how tired he was (both in the camps and recounting his story later). Something that is no doubt difficult to reproduce in a translation. But also stylistically there is poetry in his original Italian words, rather than this interpretation which I feel is a bit explanatory; simple. I'm not saying it's not a fantastic story - if you do not speak or read Italian, by all means read this, you will love it (and hate it just for what it represents) but comparative to its original it falls far short. Read the Italian version if you are able - how Levi intended it to be read.
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Jenny D.
4.0 out of 5 stars An absolute obligation fulfilled.
Reviewed in the United States on 1 May 2017
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I have long heard references to this work and am pleased to have finally engaged with it. I learnt a lot despite already knowing much from other extensive reading and study of the Holocaust. The immediacy and impact of the images and experiences were quite different and added dramatically to that of which I was aware It was incomparable. Jenny D.
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Basudev sanyal
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in India on 15 November 2014
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Awesome book
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arthur m deyholos
4.0 out of 5 stars If This is A Man/Truce
Reviewed in Canada on 25 February 2014
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Very easy to read. Great description of conditions in Nazi concentration camp in 1944. Great story about journey to get home after being liberated by Russians.
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Spanner
5.0 out of 5 stars everything went smoothly
Reviewed in Germany on 7 November 2015
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thank you
no offense but I don't have so many words to write on the subject
I feel it is enough to be saitisfied
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Amanda 📚
5.0 out of 5 stars Read. Then give to a friend to read. Then have them give to a friend. And so on.
Reviewed in the United States on 25 February 2020
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{This copy is two books in one. They mirror each other perfectly.}

I have never read anything like Primo Levi’s writing; so it is hard for me to describe for you.
He writes almost poetic - but not. His words flow beautifully together - yet he is describing one of the most horrific events that occurred in our world.

He starts with his capture. Then the deportation. Then his arrival. Then the slave labor. His sickness. His means to survive. Losing friends he made in the camp. Then the emptying of the camp and the Nazi’s departing to save themselves.
The second book starts right where the first one ends. How him and a few survive the empty camp. They were not liberated and then given foods and meds the day after the Nazi soldiers took all able prisoners on the Death Marches. This part is not something I have learned much in - so it was new to me (and I have read many books from Survivors’ accounts). Imagine surviving the Nazi’s and their gas chambers; to then be deserted (while deathly sick & starved) in a camp; freezing temperatures; no food or water; no medicines; only the clothes on your back...& never knowing who is coming to the camp at any given time........
Mr. Levi then goes on to write about the numerous stops/camps the Soviets have Survivors stay - never knowing when they will reach what they have been yearning for, for all these years = home.

Knowing this was originally all written in Italian - I cannot imagine how it would read/sound even better; as some things are always lost in translation.

I am thankful for Mr. Levi for choosing to share this with us - to educate the future generations. I encourage you ALL to read; and to speak of it so someone else will read.
This should be required reading in all of our high schools.
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