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Surviving Auschwitz by Primo Levi

            Primo Levi recounts his experience in a concentration camp during the holocaust in Surviving Auschwitz. His story is rich with detail as he writes in an incredibly intelligent way. Never letting his emotions get in the way of his autobiography. He does not spare the reader any detail when he describes the life of a prisoner. Through his story the reader learns the difficulties the camp prisoners faced from the guards, hunger, cold and labor. Primo Levi's story is eye opening. There are very few holocaust survivors that have been able to recount their stories the way Levi has. He shares his point of view of a time in history people today cannot fathom. This is Primo Levi's story of how he survived Auschwitz physically but not mentally. .
             Primo Levi is an Italian citizen who is of Jewish ancestry. He was an anti-fascist caught by the fascist police and was sent to the camp due to his Jewish background. Levi was a twenty four year old chemist when he arrived in Auschwitz. He recounts his story from the beginning when he first arrived. The people who arrived would be grouped between having some sort of value to no value. Those who were deemed suitable to work were kept alive, while those who weren't were sent directly to the crematorium. During the time Levi was sent to the camps the people were kept to do hard labor. Those who arrived healthy at the camp would have the life expectancy of three months. However, he survived eleven months in Auschwitz. He states the three main reasons that helped him were organization, pity, and theft. .
             Levi arrived at the camp with six hundred and fifty other Jews and only twenty of them left Auschwitz alive. He writes extensively about the necessities needed to survive. For example the importance of spoons, knives, bowls, shirts, and shoes. Levi holds nothing back when he states what helped him survive. He did so by always looking out for himself and never letting sympathy towards others get the best of him.


Essays Related to Surviving Auschwitz by Primo Levi

1. Holocaust

The proposition that it was pure chance that enabled Primo Levi to survive Auschwitz is indeed contentious, if not vastly simplistic. In order to fully comprehend what it was that enabled Primo Levi to survive the death camps we must carefully examine the thoughts and experiences that are chronicled in his memoir published under the title "If this is a man". ... (Levi 1979 p.24)The end of the train journey is heralded by the brightly illuminated sign above the gates of Auschwitz, Arbeit Macht Frei, and to Levi, "This is hell. ... (Levi 1979 p.43) But it is perhaps the wisdom of one man tha...

  • Word Count: 1099
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography

2. Survival In Aushwitz

(Levi, 27) The author, Primo Levi, is referring to what he calls as, " the demolition of a man" (Levi, 26) this reference becomes a common reoccurring theme in the text Survival in Auschwitz and the film Life is Beautiful. ... Primo also takes advantage of every given possible situation he can, ultimately also saving his life. ... Primo Levi, is by nature and profession a scientist. ... He learns fast to stop asking questions, as no one will help you when you are in a game of survival, when they themselves are struggling to survive, and only the fittest will survive, i.e. ... Everything was ta...

  • Word Count: 1238
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Holocaust

The novel, Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi and the short story "The Block of Death" by Sarah Nomberg-Przytyk, are two works of literature that portray how the Jews behaved. In the novel, Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi tells us, in vivid detail, his life while he was in the camp. ... Yet the way I see it is if one was to steal from his fellow Jew, he was therefore possibly giving him less of a chance to survive, so he himself can survive. ... This is a story about a young girl, Cyla, who was transported to Auschwitz from Slovakia in 1941. ... When I read the story about Cyla and Prim...

  • Word Count: 1370
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Concentration Camps

Of all the people sent to Auschwitz, only 65,000 survived (Adler 48). ... Of the 700,000 people who were sent to Treblinka and were murdered, gassed, and buried only forty survived (Steiner 35). ... Although millions of prisoners died in the concentration camps, many survived to tell about the horrible ordeal they went through. One man, Primo Levi, author of "Survival at Auschwitz,"" lived 42 years with the pain of knowing what happened when he was in Auschwitz. ... Some had the strength to survive yet many were brutally tortured and murdered. ...

  • Word Count: 1485
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: High School

5. Morgen Fruh: Tomorrow Morning

Morgen Fruh: Tomorrow Morning Primo Levi's, Survival in Auschwitz, is autobiographical account of the ten months that Levi spent in a German death camp. ... The Germans are taking away the Jews future; all that matters to the prisoners is how to survive the now, their slang for never is: morgen fruh, tomorrow morning. From the moment that prisoners entered Auschwitz the campaign began of transforming men into beasts, the Germans immediately begin to use time as a means to take away the Jews humanity. ... Levi claims at one point, "Poor silly Kraus. ... Levi and many of his comrades ...

  • Word Count: 1022
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Italy And The Holocaust

The majority of the Jewish Italians at the time, according to Zuccotti, were brave, resourceful, individualistic, nonsubmissive, and determined to survive, while a small minority were terrified, unimaginative, passive, and unable to save their own lives. ...

  • Word Count: 4666
  • Approx Pages: 19
  • Has Bibliography

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