Primo Levi's "Se questo è un uomo"

Reading Primo Levi's Se questo è un uomo, one is immediately struck by the high level of detail that Levi puts into this work. He describes his situation in such a way that is starkly scientific - detailing the plans and layouts of the concentration camp, their daily routine, as well as translating and chronicling things that were said.

And then there is another side to the work that is immediately touching and heart-wrenching. What struck me most was this. When we think of the Holocaust today, we have the benefit of history in helping us understand the horror that so many Jews and others considered "undesirable" faced at the hands of the disgusting Nazi and Fascist regimes in Italy and Germany at the time. In reading Levi's work, one is immediately faced with a sense of naivete that so many of these victims felt initially when first captured. When would they see their wives and children again? Why is no one telling them any information? When they ask for water and no one hears their pleas, is it because of a language barrier or is it because they are so hated by their captors?

Gas chambers, mass executions...these were all things that at first almost didn't seem to occur to the captives who at first saw their condition as temporary. Levi states many times that most of the captured assumed that they would instantly be put to death, and the idea of being trapped in that "hell" (l'inferno) which, at times seems almost too soft of a word to describe the horrors and ordeals Levi and his fellow captives faced, seems inconceivable at first. This is where Levi's work stands out because as you read the book, you become a part of his consciousness and understanding. It is only when reality "sets in" does the book achieve an even greater power over the reader.

At time this book is a historian's dream, recounting in detail how rooms looked, what people said, detailed layouts of the camp, the tasks they did each day and many other day to day activities in the concentration camp. Levi describes these events in a very calculating and scientific way, intellectualizing his memories which, I believe, are meant to protect the reader from the obvious atrocities he encountered.

Like The Diary of Anne Frank, this book is moving, and Levi pushes and pulls the reader in and out of the narrative. But unlike Ms. Frank's diary, this book is written by an adult who, slowly but surely, begins to realize the horrors that he and his fellow captives face as their expectations and hope for a quick release by their Nazi captors is quickly extinguished as reality sets in that they are, indeed, facing the greatest struggle of their lives.