He chose to detail his harrowing ordeal in his book Survival in Auschwitz . He was captured by Italian Fascist forces and being an "Italian Citizen of Jewish Race" he would be eventually sent to Auschwitz. One must remember and keep in mind (as I tried too) that this is a memoir. Having said that, over the following pages this review hopes to critique the book and analyze its effectiveness as a primary source document.
In his book, Levi details various survival methods his fellow comrades used to escape internment alive. These include trading cloth for bread or soup, as well as trading gold fillings for more cloths to begin the cycle anew. The economic system presented here is vast, with various suppliers and demand points. Currency became null and void, bread was the currency, and it gets you anything you wanted or needed. Anything one might want could be acquired provided s/he posses the proper amount of bread. Every item, he says, has value and if one drops their guard for a millisecond the item will be stolen.
Also, his portrayal of the German guard could leave one a bit perplexed. If he did not talk about them, one might forget that Levi was in a concentration camp or that the Germans were keeping him there. He also makes no strides to demonize of dehumanize them, despite the conditions they kept him under. The author portrayed them as just cogs in a larger machine. The author portrays the beatings that the German captors gave out as routine, failing to give them any context or descriptive words such as horrible, terrifying, or inhumane. One might also find it surprising that he records the German's orders word for word despite admitting to only possessing a cursory knowledge of German and spending a considerable amount of his story on the harshness of the language barrier.
He evens goes so far as to recall the story of Babel to fill make tangible his plight with speaking all these languages. Yet, he still manages to present German (or Yiddish) as perfect as he can, recalling every detail on what is said and the signage, if any, that appears around him.
Every time he presents someone new for the reader to meet, he immediately tells you everything about them. This includes what their name is, what part of Europe they lived, and what job they had "on the outside" as well as a physical description. For example, when he introduces the reader to Walter Bonn on page 52, he says: “One is Walter Bonn, a Dutchman, civilized quite well mannered”. Levi then goes on to recount what disease lands Walter in Ka-Be, which is organic decay, before asking him for a spoon as Levi lost his. He spends much of the individual "chapters" time introducing the reader to various people, whether they are prisoners, or guards, or watchmen. Even if the author did revisit his tale years after the fact, he makes no citations. Why might he include everyone's name with whom he interacts? It is clear that he wished to give you people's names as part of a process of re-humanization. Having their names robbed and taken from them and replaced with a number by the Nazi's, he attempts to restore theme somewhat. In essence, he makes it possible for them to live again.
Furthermore he uses two analogies during his book that hearken back to stories told before, and relies an at least mentionable part on Greek tales. First, to describe and make vivid his struggle he uses (albeit indirectly) the story of Sisyphus, who was condemned by Zeus to push a rock up a hill only to have it fall down again. Secondly, to make vivid the not just the want but the need of food and its acquisition he compares dreams that other have to the figure of Tantalus, who was condemned by Zeus to always be denied food and water. Hence the part of the book where the author speaks of tantalizing dreams where the dream's mouth moves as if to imitate the act of eating. One is left wondering if when food is of that significant importance, if one really is thinking of Greek stories to satiate themselves. His use of allusions and literary devices suggest to me that he took substantial time after the fact writing this book. However, I am still left questioning why he presents information that he, frankly, could not have known. More then just language, he presents how soup is acquired and who is responsible for its creation. Where did he get such information? Did he do outside research and if so, why did he not cite any sources? Even if he did as little as interview survivors of the Holocaust, why not at least cite that?
