Primo Levi an Anti-Fascist, Italian Jew

Primo Levi, the author and subject of the autobiography, was arrested in December, 1943. An anti-Fascist, Italian Jew, he was sent to a prison camp in Italy and then deported to Auschwitz in February, 1944. Levi survived in Auschwitz largely because by 1944, the Nazis had suspended full-effort genocide in preference to enforced convict labor. When the camp was evacuated in January, 1945, Levi remained behind, a victim of Scarlet Fever. After surviving for ten final days in the abandoned and rapidly deteriorating camp, he was liberated by the arriving Soviet Army. After spending several months in a Soviet camp for former concentration camp inmates, Levi eventually returned to his home,Turin, in October of 1945.

Levi was born in Turin, Italy, at the end of July, 1919. He was raised in a liberal, Jewish family and received his education in chemistry from the University of Turin, graduating with honors in 1941. His early education included anti-Fascist components. During late 1943, the legal Italian government agreed to an armistice with the Allies. Around that time, Levi became involved in anti-Fascist politics. Shortly after the armistice, the German government assumed control of the Italian state and forcibly reinstated the Fascist Benito Mussolini as dictator. Levi, living in the German-occupied zone of Italy, joined the Italian resistance movement and, with several comrades, took to the wilderness in search of partisans. They were captured and arrested by the Fascist militia and detained for a few days. When Levi's Jewish heritage was discovered, he was sent to an internment camp at Fossoli near Modena.

In February, 1944, Levi and other Jews were transported to Auschwitz by means of cattle trucks. Of the six-hundred-and-fifty Jews in Levi's shipment, only twenty left Auschwitz alive. Levi notes that the average life expectancy within the camp system was three months for healthy new arrivals capable of work. Levi survived due to a confluence of circumstances. He possessed rudimentary German-language skills and quickly enhanced his abilities. He made fortunate friendships, which allowed him improved food allotments. And during November, 1944, his excellent, formal education in chemistry got him assigned to an indoor chemical