us-005578-irn538193
type: RecordSet
archival history: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
biographical history: Primo Levi was born on July 31, 1919 in Turin, Italy, son of Cesare Levi and Ester Luzzati Levi. His sister Anna Maria was born in 1921. As a child, Levi had a basic Jewish religious education, and was Bar Mitzvahed at age 13. He became passionate about chemistry at age 14, focusing his high school studies on science. In October 1937, he enrolled as a chemistry student at the University of Turin, graduating cum laude in July 1941. His diploma noted that he was"of the Jewish race" In July 1942, Levi moved to Milan to work at Wander, a Swiss drug company, and then in November he and his friends made contact with members of an anti-Fascist organization and joined the clandestine Action Party. The following summer, after the fall of the Fascist government and the German invasion of Italy, Levi quit his job and joined a partisan group in Valle d'Aosta in the Alps. On December 13, 1943, Levi was arrested near Brusson with others and taken to the Fossoli transit camp. In February 1944, the Germans took over operation of Fossoli, and Levi was sent on transport to Auschwitz, with approximately 650 others prisoners. Only 95 men and 29 women from this transport were selected for labor, all the others were immediately killed in the gas chambers. Levi was tattooed with prisoner number 174517 and sent to Monowitz. During that time, he met and befriended Lorenzo Perrone who was working as a mason for an Italian company that had moved to Auschwitz. Perrone helped Levi by providing him with extra rations, and other goods. Levi credited Perrone with saving his life, and Perrone was recognized in 1998 as Righteous Among the Nations for his actions. Levi was sick with scarlet fever when the Germans evacuated the camp as the Russian army advanced on the camp in early 1945, and he was liberated by the Russian Army on January 27, 1945. Levi lived in a Soviet transit camp in Katowice, Poland for several months and then after some time in a camp in Belarus, he and other Italian former priso…
has beginning date: 1946-01-01
has end date: 1947-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had identifier: 2
has or had some members with language: ita
has or had some members with language: deu
has or had subject: 0
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn538193
record resource extent: folders 10
record resource structure: The texts in this collection are arranged by chapter, in the sequence in which they appeared in the published version of Se questo è un Uomo.
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: The Primo Levi manuscript collection consists of the typescript text of a working draft of Primo Levi's original manuscript Se questo è un Uomo [If This Is a Man], which recounted his experiences as a prisoner at Auschwitz, and was later published as Survival in Auschwitz. Contains handwritten corrections and additions in red pencil; and includes 10 of the 17 chapters that were eventually included in the final publication. Many of the texts conclude with the date on which they were written, along with Levi’s name.
title: Primo Levi manuscript collection