‘If This Is A
Man’ is a stark account by Primo Levi (1919-1987)- Italian poet, novelist and scientist, of his experiences at Auschwitz during World War 2, where he was imprisoned for 11
months. The novel recounts in unflinching detail the inhuman conditions and degradations the
camp’s prisoners were subject to in the course of putting Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ into effect by the Nazis. The gamut of human temperaments and personalities are presented, in a veritable hell where the average life span of a prisoner was a mere 3 months. The dehumanizing of the camp’s inmates is portrayed by the
author in an uncompromisingly realistic yet non-judgmental manner, in a place where survival often overrode all other considerations. And while the author’s testament never presumes to provide the answers, it is bound to raise questions in the reader’s mind and force him/her to re-examine himself/herself.
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