Rating: 
Summary: A man of many talents
Review: I'm suprised at the reviewer who said Levi is not a writer. I thought that was a mjor strength of the book. Not only does Levi have a moving story, he tells it in beautiful, hopeful prose. Maybe the aforementioned viewer had a bad translation. I read the one by Stuart Woolf.
Rating:
Summary: Passionate & instructive insight into the Holocaust
Review: In a more perfect life, this book should be science fiction. Primo Levi deposits us in a world where the typical convivality that makes human society bearable has been eliminated and replaced by a horrible premise: humans may only live if they can do work useful to the state. "Survival in Auschwitz" plays the theme out. Those who are unable to work are immediately killed, using the most efficient means possible. Those who survive must find ways to maintain the illusion of usefulness with the least possible exertion. Instead of brotherhood, there is commerce, a black market where a stolen bar of soap is traded for a loaf of bread; the soap allows the owner to maintain a more healthy appearance while the bread feeds its owner for another day. We see property in its most base form. A spoon, a bowl, a few trinkets cleverly used, that is all a person can hold at a time. It's instructive to read this book as an insight into homelessness. What kind of place is this where we create humiliated zombies, shuffling behind their carts containing all their worldly possessions? How long can we let the State fight against the innate emotion that tells us that no-one should go hungry while we eat and no-one should be homeless while we have shelter?
What always amazes me about the Holocaust is the sheer improbability of the story of each of its survivors. This is the horror. For every shining genius of the stature of Primo Levi, there are thousands of other amazing people, gassed and murdered in the showers filled with Zyklon-B.
Rating:
Summary: The Drowned and The Saved
Review: In a place like Auschwitz, all the prisoners are the same. Despite each person's previous customs, cultures, ages, and languages, everyone is alike. In the simplest terms, they are all alone, separated from the world they once knew and called home. Primo Levi says, "there they live a regular, controlled life which is identical for all and inadequate to all needs (Levi 87). He gives an account of the unbearable life that he and the other prisoners shared. However, Levi points out that among them they are not all exactly the same; they are divided, separated into two groups. One is the drowned, and the other is the saved. The drowned are those that have lost all hope, and unfortunately, this incorporates the majority. Levi says these are the people who lose themselves, forgetting their past and constantly complaining. The saved, however, are those that never give up hope. The difference in the groups is a result of the German's attempt to dehumanize the prisoners; those that fall victim to these attempts are those who find themselves drowned. Levi presents the truth with this book about life in Auschwitz. The book is rather disturbing (but not gory) and very informative, as well as interesting. It is one of the best descriptions of camp life that I have ever read, definitely worth the read! This book is a pretty easy read, although there is a bit of German throughout (just a sentence here and there), but almost all of it is translated.
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Summary: Changing the way the World looks
Review: In this amazing work of nonfiction, Primo Levi shows us the world in ways we've never seen it before. The world is absurd! There is no cause and effect! This work and its subject: the Holocaust, inspired writers like Camus, Beckett, and Stoppard to write the things they did and it enforces their work like nothing else can. This book may be one of the most important statements of the twenty first century!
Rating: 
Summary: A window into the trials of Auschwitz
Review: Levi exposes himself here to the greatest degree possible. We suffer with him physically, emotionally and spiritually. Auschwitz was a trial. It showed humanity at its worst, which makes the account difficult to read at times because we are not always willing to see human beings as capable of being so evil. However, I believe that it is only by reading such texts, which are rich in terms of the factual content and in terms of the quality of the prose, that we will understand what our ancestors lived and achieved in the second World War. Everyone has moved on, but by remembering, we give society a chance not to make the same mistakes twice. In my opinion, Levi's preservation of his memories in this work are an invaluable chance for those he left behind him to live, evolve and progress. Certainly and hopefully, Levi rid himself of his nightmares to a degree as he compiled this work, but in so doing, I believe he also reveals the extent to which our compatriots fought (in all senses of the word), and the price they paid, in order to achieve what we in Europe often take for granted today.
Rating:
Summary: Not For The Sentimental
Review: Levi's account seems suprisingly detached considering he lived through a hell on earth. But his narrative drew me into the story in the way he had intended: to give the facts as a witness and let the reader experience it as it happened. If you like this book you have to read The Reawakening as well. This is a great author.
Rating:
Summary: horrific, huge, scary, what we can do to one another
Review: please read this book. I have long studied WWII, no other work as so affected me to the extent of this book. Levi explains the ultimate horror. Imagine being stripped of everying, honor, clothing, self esteem. Self and worthiness. It is maddening. Levi produces a realistic, traumatic and horrifying portrait of what people went through not more than 54 years ago. Lest we repeat this lesson, it is important to listen to those like Levi. We all are capable of the ativistic characteristics of those we wish to distance ourselves from.
Rating:
Summary: survival in auschwitz
Review: Primo is an italian jew from italy. in 1943 the fasciest militia raided her town and home. the german militia took everybody in that town and put them on a train. they didnt know it yet but thay had just become prisoners of germany, prisoners of adolf hitler. everything they knew and loved gone in and instant. they never knew if they would ever see their homes again or even their best friends again. primo lived in auschwitz for over a year and a half, fighting for her life day after day. during the day, her and the other prisoners in the camp got 3 meals a day, but it isnt the kind of meals you adn i think of. day after day all they had to eat was a piece of bread and a bowl of soup. thats not very filling, not very filling at all. also during the day they would have to work or they would be killed on teh spot. life was rough for that year and a half. probably the worste time was during winter. each prisoner was issued one thin shirt and pants and wooden shoes. might i remind you wood isnt a really warm material until you light it on fire witch they couldnt do because they were infact there only pair of shoes. i liked this book because it is a true story, a personal story of a young womans life. living through such a horrible time, living in auschwitz the worste concentration camp there was. i liked how it told everthing that happened and not just the bad. i thought it was funny how some of the prisoners tried to hurt them-selves to get into the ka-be, work free for forty days. i dont like how it is a book. i would rather watch it instead of reading I HATE TO READ. i dont like how it happened the whole holacaust thing. there could have been a better way to tell your hatred. you dont have to captize a entire nationality just to prove there hatred. i would recommed this book to people who liek to read. if you dont liek to read then dont buy books or read them. this book is good for people who liek to learn about the holacaust or personal stories about what actually happened while in auscwtiz.
Rating:
Summary: When Nothing Can Be Worse
Review: Primo Levi's book is a living testament to how a gifted author can convey the most intense and gristly scene, without resorting to the outright grotesque. With aplomb that few have, Levi is able to give a rather full and moving description of his personal experience in Auschwitz and its surrounding camps. Interesting is that he never makes a complaint, as there is no use to do so. Even while in the worst possible imaginable human conditions, only survival has real value and lends motivation to go on. In Auschwitz, all was just one long day, that ended either in surprise liberation, as did happen for some, or death, which did happen for most. Levi was somewhat fortunate, and did not enter the death camps until late in the war. His length of internment was part of what helped him survive. Yet oddly, it was only a mere fraction of the whole system needed to survive under such conditions. Ironically, Levi did eventually commit suicide, after becoming world renown as a writer. While this is uncommon for Holocaust survivors, it is most predominant amongst writers, artists and poets. But before leaving, Levi left us some of the finest examples of how to convey an unbelievable situation in a believable manner. His work and his choice of verbiage is uncommonly artistic. And the book gives the reader a very real and present understanding of just how the conditions really were. As unbelievable as one can imagine, is in fact, how they were.
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Summary: The best and most terrifying of the holocaust testimonies.
Review: Primo Levi's crystalline memory of
the day to day existance as a slave in living hell and his masterful command of language make for riveting, terrifying reading. More than any other testimony, this one takes you there.
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