If This Is a Man

If This Is a Man

Original first edition cover
Author	Primo Levi
Original title	Se questo è un uomo
Translator	Stuart Woolf
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
Genre	Memoir
Publisher	De Silva (Italian) Einaudi (Italian) The Orion Press (English)
Publication date	1947
Published in English	1959
Pages	179 pp

If This Is a Man (first published in 1947 in Italian as Se questo è un uomo [se (k)ˈkwesto ɛ un ˈwɔːmo]; United States title: Survival in Auschwitz) is a work by the Italian Jewish writer Primo Levi. It describes his arrest as a member of the Italian anti-fascist resistance during the Second World War, and his incarceration in the Auschwitz concentration camp from February 1944 until the camp was liberated on January 27, 1945.

Publication

Primo Levi

The first manuscript for Se questo è un uomo was completed by Levi in December 1946. In January 1947, the manuscript was rejected by Einaudi. Levi managed to find a smaller publisher, De Silva,^[1] who printed 2,500 copies of the book, 1,500 of which were sold, mostly in his home town of Turin. In 1957, Einaudi agreed to reprint it, and interest in it increased.^[1]

An English translation by Stuart Woolf was published in 1959, and a German translation by Heinz Reidt appeared in 1961, titled Ist das ein Mensch?, as was a French edition.^[1] All translations were completed under the supervision of Levi. He was particularly careful to oversee the German translation, writing in The Drowned and the Saved:

I did not trust my German publisher. I wrote him an almost insolent letter: I warned him not to remove or change a single word in the text, and I insisted that he send me the manuscript of the translation in batches ... I wanted to check on not merely its lexical but also its inner faithfulness.^[2]

Robert S. C. Gordon writes that Levi went on to develop a close relationship with Reidt.^[3] The German edition contains a special preface addressed to the German people, which Levi said he wrote out of passionate necessity to remind them what they had done.^[4]

If This Is a Man is often published with Levi's second work of witness, The Truce (Italian title: La Tregua).

Invocation

The book is introduced by a poem. The curious construction "If .." invites the reader to make a judgement. It alludes to the treatment of people as Untermenschen (German for "sub-human"), and to Levi's examination of the degree to which it was possible for a prisoner in Auschwitz to retain his or her humanity. The poem explains the title and sets the theme of the book: humanity in the midst of inhumanity.

The last part of the poem, beginning "meditate," explains Levi's purpose in having written it: to record what happened so that later generations will ponder (a more literal translation of meditare) the significance of the events he lived through. It also parallels the language of the V'ahavta, the Jewish prayer that commands followers to remember and pass on the teachings of their faith.

Se questo è un uomo Voi che vivete sicuri Nelle vostre tiepide case voi che trovate tornando a sera Il cibo caldo e visi amici: Considerate se questo è un uomo Che lavora nel fango Che non conosce pace Che lotta per mezzo pane Che muore per un sì o per un no. Considerate se questa è una donna Senza capelli e senza nome Senza più forza di ricordare Vuoti gli occhi e freddo il grembo Come una rana d'inverno. Meditate che questo è stato Vi comando queste parole. Scolpitele nel vostro cuore Stando in casa andando per via Coricandovi alzandovi Ripetetele ai vostri figli. O vi si sfaccia la casa La malattia vi impedisca I vostri nati torcano il viso da voi.

If This Is a Man You who live safe In your warm houses, You who find, returning in the evening, Hot food and friendly faces: Consider if this is a man Who works in the mud, Who does not know peace, Who fights for a scrap of bread, Who dies because of a yes or a no. Consider if this is a woman Without hair and without name, With no more strength to remember, Her eyes empty and her womb cold Like a frog in winter. Meditate that this came about: I commend these words to you. Carve them in your hearts At home, in the street, Going to bed, rising; Repeat them to your children. Or may your house fall apart, May illness impede you, May your children turn their faces from you.

Ist das ein Mensch? Ihr, die ihr gesichert lebet In behaglicher Wohnung; Ihr, die ihr abends beim Heimkehren Warme Speise findet und vertraute Gesichter: Denket, ob dies ein Mann sei, Der schuftet in Schlamm, Der Frieden nicht kennt, Der kämpft um ein halbes Brot, Der stirbt auf ein Ja oder Nein. Denket, ob dies eine Frau sei, Die kein Haar mehr hat und keinen Namen, Die zum Erinnern keine Kraft mehr hat, Leer die Augen und kalt ihr Schoß Wie im Winter die Kröte. Denket, daß solches gewesen. Es sollen sein diese Worte in eurem Herzen. Ihr sollt über sie sinnen, wenn ihr sitzet In einem Hause, wenn ihr geht auf euren Wegen, Wenn ihr euch niederlegt und wenn ihr aufsteht; Ihr sollt sie einschärfen euern Kindern. Oder eure Wohnstatt soll zerbrechen, Krankheit soll euch niederringen, Eure Kinder sollen das Antlitz von euch wenden.

See also

• Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
• Night (book)
• The Diary of a Young Girl
• The Holocaust in popular culture

Notes

1. Levi, Primo. Note to the Theatre version of If This Is a Man, pp. 23–25.
2. The Drowned and the Saved, p. 139, cited in Gordon 2007, p. 157.
3. Gordon 2007, p. 157.
4. The Drowned and the Saved (Italian title: I Sommersi e i Salvati)

References

• Benchouiha, Lucie (2006). Primo Levi: Rewriting the Holocaust. Troubador Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-905237-23-5
• Gordon, Robert S. C. (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-84357-X

Further reading

• Alford, Frederick (31 May 2009). After the Holocaust: Primo Levi, The Book of Job, and the Path to Affliction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-74706-6.
• Patruno, Nicholas (2008). Understanding Primo Levi. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 1-57003-791-4.
• Pugliese, Stanislao G. (2004). The Legacy of Primo Levi. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-6645-1.
• Farrell, Joseph (2004). Primo Levi: The Austere Humanist. Verlag Peter Lang. ISBN 3-03910-069-6.
• Thomson, Ian (2003). Primo Levi: A Biography. Vintage. ISBN 0-09-951521-0.
• Angier, Carole (2003). The Double Bond: Primo Levi, a Biography. Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN 0-14-016587-8.
• Kremer, Roberta S. (2001). Memory and Mastery: Primo Levi as Writer and Witnes. State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-4922-X.
• Anissimov, Myriam (2000). Primo Levi: Tragedy of an Optimist. Overlook Press. ISBN 1-58567-020-0.
• Cicioni, Mirna (1995). Primo Levi: Bridges of Knowledge. Berg Publishers. ISBN 1-85973-063-9.
• Camon, Ferdinando (1991). Conversations with Primo Levi. The Marlboro Press. ISBN 0-910395-48-9.
• Vincenti, Fiora (1981). Primo Levi. Milan: Mursia.