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Primo Levi...
Levi was born in Turin on July 31, 1919 at Corso Re Umberto 75 into a liberal Jewish family. His father Cesare worked for the manufacturing firm Ganz and spent much of his time working abroad in Hungary, where Ganz was based. Cesare was an avid reader and autodidact. Levi’s mother Ester, known to everyone as Rina, was well educated, having attended the Instituto Maria Letizia. She too was an avid reader, played the piano and spoke fluent French.[2] The marriage between Rina and Cesare was arranged by Rina’s father.[3] On their wedding day, Rina’s father, Cesare Luzzati, gave Rina the apartment at Corso Re Umberto where Primo Levi was to live for almost his entire life. A Tribute To Primo Levi Part OneIn July 1934 at the age of 14, he sat his exams for the Massimo d'Azeglio liceo classico, a Lyceum (sixth form) specialising in the classics and was admitted in the autumn. The school was noted for its well-known anti-Fascist teachers, amongst them Norberto Bobbio, and for a few months Cesare Pavese, also an anti-Fascist and later to become one of Italy's best-known novelists.[9] Levi continued to be bullied during his time at the Lyceum although he was now in a class with six other Jews.[10] On reading Concerning the Nature of Things by Sir William Bragg it was during this time that Levi decided that he wanted to be a chemist.[11] Levi matriculated from the school in 1937 despite being accused of ignoring a call-up to the Italian Royal Navy the week before his exams were due to begin. As a result of this incident, and possibly some antisemitic bias in the marking, Levi had to retake his Italian paper. At the end of the summer he passed his exams and in October he enrolled at the University of Turin, to study chemistry. The registered intake of eighty hopefuls spent three months taking lectures in preparation for their colloquio or oral examination when the eighty would be reduced to twenty. The following February Levi graduated onto the full-time chemistry course. Part 2
However because of the antisemitic laws, and the increasing intensity of prevalent Fascism, Levi had difficulty finding a supervisor for his graduation thesis which was on the subject of Walden inversion, a study of the asymmetry of the carbon atom. Eventually taken on by Dr. Nicolo Dallaporta he graduated in the summer of 1941 with full marks and merit, having submitted additional theses on X Rays and Electrostatic Energy. His degree certificate bore the remark, "of Jewish race". The racial laws prevented Levi from finding a suitable permanent position after he had graduated. Part 3
When Fossoli fell into the hands of the Germans, the Jews were rounded up for deportation. On February 21, 1944, the inmates of the camp were transported to Auschwitz in twelve cramped cattle trucks. Levi spent eleven months there before the camp was liberated by the Red Army. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his shipment, Levi was one of only twenty who left the camps alive. The average life expectancy of a new entrant was three months. Part 4
Levi was almost unrecognisable on his return to Turin. Malnutrition oedema had bloated his face. Sporting a scrawny beard and wearing an old Red Army uniform he arrived back at Corso Re Umberto. The next few months gave him an opportunity to recover physically, re-establish contact with surviving friends and family and to start looking for work. However, Levi was understandably suffering from psychological trauma. Having been unable to find work in Turin he started to look for work in Milan. On his train journeys he started to tell people he met stories about his time at Auschwitz. At a Jewish New Year party in 1946 he met Lucia Morpurgo who offered to teach him to dance. Levi fell in love with Lucia. At about this time he started writing poetry about his experiences in the Lager. Part 5
Levi began writing The Truce early in 1961 and it was published in 1963, almost 16 years after his first book, and the same year it won the first annual Premio Campiello literary award. It is often published in one volume with If This Is a Man, as it covers his long return from Auschwitz. Levi's reputation was growing. He regularly contributed articles to La Stampa, the Turin newspaper. He wished to be known as a writer about other subjects. Levi's Highschool in Turin,Italy today... What drove Levi to write If This Is a Man was a desire to bear witness to the horrors of the Nazis' attempt to exterminate the Jewish people. He read many accounts of witnesses and survivors and attended meetings of survivors, becoming in the end a symbolic figure for anti-fascists in Italy. ArchivesCategories |