commandant kommandant reawakening autobiography

books:

40 reviews
Primo Levi

Schocken, 1995

good chemistry!
I didn't know what to expect when picking up this book. I'd recently finished the not unrelated Garden of the Finzi-Continis and thought I might find some variant on this. Yes, both books consider Jewish-Italian culture in the years surrounding WWII, with the specter of the holocaust in the background (mainly). But they are quite different. F.C. has at its roots the humanities, and P.T., the ...

If Not Now, When? (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

10 reviews
Primo Levi

Penguin Classics, 1995

Gripping tale of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstan
This fictional account of Jewish partisans fighting their way through war ravaged eastern Europe is incredibly moving. The characters are so realistically human in their reactions to the chaotic conditions that they encounter. The book explores a chapter of WWII history that is not very well known and does so from the perspectives of ordinary people caught up in the swirling events and joined ...

The Monkey's Wrench (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

6 reviews
Primo Levi

Penguin Classics, 1995

Witty, Poingnant, Haunting Barely Begin to Describe Levi
There are some people who you can never hear enough of. Levi is certainly one of those. He combines one of the greates talents as a writer in this century with a wisdom uncommon for any age. This book is not an adventure story in the typical sence of the word, but reading it is an adventure, and I for one am a better man for having opened its covers. I don't think that Levi has ever written ...

A Tranquil Star: Stories

4 reviews
Primo Levi

W. W. Norton, 2008

Primo Levi-A Tranquil Star
Primo Levi is the most honest intepreter of the Holocaust and of his own life and experiences. He envelopes the reader and invites him to become part of him as he tells about his life, experiences and the philosophy that is his life. One can feel his sensitivity and honesty in all his writing-he is not out to impress but rather to document in language that is sophisticated but clear. I have ...

Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz

29 reviews
Rudolf Höss

Da Capo Press, 1996

Rudolph Hoess (Auschwitz Kommandant) and the Clarification of Some Holocaust Misconceptions
I give this book five stars because of its historical value. This work not only gives insight into the mind of the leader of perhaps the greatest death factory ever built, but also allows a clearing-up of some errors that have accreted in the decades since that horrible time. Hoess rejected God and the Church (p. 52-53, 57, 59, 72, 192), having rebelled against his father's wish that he become ...

The Drowned and the Saved

18 reviews
Primo Levi

Vintage, 1989

A must for students of ethics
This is a book that causes the reader to reconsider, reflect critically one's own views, marvel at the level of depravity to which humans can steep, and is one which I imagine should be a standard text in ethics courses. But it also raises questions of memory and the mind"s ability to adjust, amend and retool. Mr Levi must stand as one of that sad century's most astonishing examples of ...

Survival In Auschwitz

66 reviews
Primo Levi

Touchstone, 1996

The Experiences and Reflections of an Italian Jew at Auschwitz
My review of this classic emphasizes matters not raised by previous reviewers, and is based upon the 1986 edition which combines SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ, THE REAWAKENING, and AFTERWORD... Levi wasn't sent to or near the gas chambers and crematoria. Instead, he was diverted into forced labor in the sub-camp of Monowitz (p. 386), some 7 km east of Auschwitz proper. Poles had to wear a large "P". ...

Moments of Reprieve: A Memoir of Auschwitz (Twentieth Century Classics)

4 reviews
Primo Levi

Penguin Classics, 1995

discover this book!!!
it was recommended by a good friend of mine to read a certain book by this author. i couldn't get my hands on the book recommended, but i decided to try this one at random. i was not disappointed. i thought this book was excellent. it is full of short stories about several people who levi remembers from his time in auschwitz. it is not a heavy book about the holocaust, it is a collection of ...

The Reawakening

8 reviews
Primo Levi

Touchstone, 1995

Carnival World
Like Survival in Auschwitz and The Periodic Table, The Reawakening is populated with Levi's brilliant language and fascination with character. In Survival, Table and Reawakening, Levi is careful not to force facts into a satisfyingly explanatory story. The Reawakening is a picaresque without the moral center. Levi travels home through a carnival world, a Europe simultaneously stunned and ...

If This Is a Man and The Truce

6 reviews
Primo Levi

Abacus, 1991

Heart-breaking but informative and important
A truly amazing book - I cannot promise that you will enjoy it, in fact I can almost guarantee that you will find most of it heart-breaking and painful. It is a little like watching Kieslowski's A Short Film About Killing - on many levels you do not enjoy it but it enthrals you. The subject matter is so important and it is so beautifully made and eloquent that you feel compelled to watch (or ...

Sixth Day

3 reviews
Primo Levi

Abacus Software, 1993

great book, original ideas
this book is obviously fiction, but his style of writing so matter-of-factly makes these dreamed up stories so tangible. most of levi's work is non-fiction, autobiographical, always in first person. however, although still in first person, the sixth day is a subtle stretch from the rest of levi's work. like some kind of autobiographical sci-fi, almost believable, until you realize that what he's ...

Other People's Trades (Abacus Books)

1 review
Primo Levi

Abacus, 1990

A humane, wise book
It is really unfortunate that this book is out of print now, it deserves to be reissued and widely read. Those who know of Primo Levi only know, for the most part, that he was a partisan, was a survivior of Auschwitz, a chemist, and died, a likely suicide. All of these are true. However, there is more to Primo Levi than those stark facts, and this book makes them abundantly clear. Levi had ...

The Mirror Maker: Stories and Essays

1 review
Primo Levi

Schocken, 1990

fun read
hilariously insightful; primo levi doesn't usually strike across as a fantasy writer, nonetheless, his un-apologetic personality comes through these intricate stories, written to reflect various avenue in the nature of human beings.

Auschwitz Report

1 review
Primo Levi, Leonardo Debenedetti

Verso, 2006

Excellent reporting
As you may already know, Primo Levi on the Holocaust can be seriously depressing. The brief Auschwitz Report is an uemotional report of some of the events and practices Levi witnessed there. Perhaps the lack of obvious emotion brings our horror into sharp relief.

Collected Poems: New Edition (Poetry)

2 reviews
Primo Levi

Faber & Faber, 1992

Depressing but compelling
The book comprises the former editions 'Shema' and 'At an Uncertain Hour' as well as eighteen previously uncollected poems. The poems combine a sometimes distanced stance with a very intimate and poignant emotion. Levi manages to capture a sense of the futility of life in the face of evil; the fact that he survived the Holocaust when so many others did not haunts him throughout the ...

Commandant of Auschwitz : The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess

11 reviews
Constantine Fitzgibbon, Rudolf Hoess, ...

Phoenix Press, 2000

A Lone Wolf Writing His Diabolical Story in Prison
This is an eerie book. I suppose I expected to find a monster leering at me from page one, but the book has more layers to the story than that. It was creepy to start off by feeling drawn into the story of his childhood. I had a sense that Hoess enjoyed the process of writing. After everything he had perpetrated - after all the suffering he'd witnessed - to sit in a prison cell and write the ...

If This Is a Man (Everyman's Library Classics)
Primo Levi

Everyman's Library, 2000

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