Summary of If This Is a Man
“If This Is a Man” is Primo Levi’s memoir of his arrest and imprisonment in Monowitz, a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, and his day-to-day survival until the camp’s liberation by the Soviet army in January 1945. Primo Levi describes the horrific living conditions and the total lack of morality and humanity in Auschwitz.
Reasons to read If This Is a Man
“If This Is a Man” is a first-hand account of the dehumanisation in the Nazi extermination camps, written in a straight-forward, observational and impassioned tone, which makes the book even more disturbing. The novel was published in the US as “Survival in Auschwitz”. Primo Levi was a Jewish-Italian writer, scientist, and Holocaust survivor. His short story collection “The Periodic Table” was named the best science book ever written by the British Royal Institution.
Setting: Monowice – Auschwitz IIIÂ (Poland)
Original title: Se questo è un uomo
Year of publication: 1947
Nr of pages: 187
