Primo Levi
Chemist and writer; If This Is a Man set the pattern for Holocaust testimony
He was arrested on 13 December 1943, sent to Monowitz-Auschwitz on 21 February 1944 as number 174517, and freed on 27 January 1945. Of the six hundred and fifty Jews on his transport about twenty survived.
About belief he said the same before and after: a nonbeliever—and he recorded refusing to pray in the camp precisely because he would not bargain: prayer at such an hour would be a "false consolation". It is one of the most exact passages in the whole literature of the Holocaust.
He visited Israel once, in 1968, and came away troubled by its military side; he called its creation a "historic mistake" while defending the necessity of a refuge, and in 1982 publicly demanded withdrawal from Lebanon and Begin's resignation.
His death on 11 April 1987 was officially ruled a suicide. That must be printed with a caveat: some friends, including his doctor and Rita Levi-Montalcini, argued it could have been a fall caused by dizziness from his medication.
On the timeline
Sources
Documents of the period
- P. Levi, If This Is a Man (1947) — the refusal to pray in the camp as a refusal to bargain
Basis: documents and evidence.