In 1945, soon after the liberation of Auschwitz, Soviet authorities in control of the Kattowitz (Katowice) camp in Poland asked Primo Levi and his fellow captive Leonardo De Benedetti to compile a detailed report on the sanitary conditions they witnessed in Auschwitz. The result was an extraordinary testimony and one of the first accounts of the extermination camps ever written. Their report, published in a medical journal in 1946, marked the beginnings of Levi’s life-long work as writer, analyst and witness.
In the subsequent four decades, Levi never ceased to recount his experiences in Auschwitz in a wide variety of texts, many of which are assembled together here for the first time, alongside other testimony from De Benedetti. From early research into the fate of their companions to the deposition written for Eichmann’s trial, Auschwitz Testimonies is a rich mosaic of documents, memories and critical reflections of great historic and human value.
Underpinned by his characteristically clear language, rigorous method and deep psychological insight, this collection of testimonies, reports and analyses reaffirms Primo Levi’s position as one of the most important chroniclers of the Holocaust.
Table of Contents:
Figures ix
Translator’s Note x
Judith Woolf
Introduction: Bare Witness 1
Robert S.C. Gordon
1: Report on the Sanitary and Medical Organization of the Monowitz Concentration Camp for Jews (Auschwitz Ð Upper Silesia) 1945-6 19
Leonardo De Benedetti and Primo Levi
2: Record by Dr. Primo Levi, registration no. 174517 survivor of Monowitz-Buna 1945 45
Primo Levi
3: Deposition circa 1946 49
Primo Levi
4: Deposition on Monowitz 1946? 52
Leonardo De Benedetti
5: Statement for the Höss Trial 1947 57
Primo Levi
6: Deposition for the Höss Trial 1947 60
Leonardo De Benedetti
7: Testimony for a fellow prisoner 1953 64
Primo Levi
8: Anniversary 1955 67
Primo Levi
9: Denunciation against Dr. Joseph Mengele circa 1959 70
Leonardo De Benedetti
10: Letter to a Fascist’s daughter who wants to know the truth 1959 75
Primo Levi
11: Miracle in Turin 1959 78
Primo Levi
12: The time of the swastikas 1960 80
Primo Levi
13: Deposition for the Eichmann Trial 1960 83
Primo Levi
14: Testimony for Eichmann 1961 87
Primo Levi
15: Deportation and extermination of the Jews 1961 93
Primo Levi
16: Statement for the Bosshammer Trial 1965 101
Primo Levi
17: The deportation of the Jews 1966 103
Primo Levi
18: Questionnaire for the Bosshammer Trial 1970 107
Leonardo De Benedetti
19: Questionnaire for the Bosshammer Trial 1970 115
Primo Levi
20: Deposition for the Bosshammer Trial 1971 121
Primo Levi
21: The Europe of the Lagers 1973 129
Primo Levi
22: This was Auschwitz 1975 135
Primo Levi
23: Political deportees 1975 139
Primo Levi
24: Draft of a text for the interior of the Italian Block at Auschwitz 1978 144
Primo Levi
25: A secret defence committee at Auschwitz 1979 147
Primo Levi
26: That train to Auschwitz 1979 150
Primo Levi
27: In memory of a good man 1983 154
Primo Levi
28: To our generationÉ 1986 157
Primo Levi
APPENDIX: The train to Auschwitz 1971 160
Primo Levi and Leonardo De Benedetti
Afterword: A Witness and the Truth 164
Fabio Levi and Domenico Scarpa
Acknowledgements 192
About the Author :
Primo Levi (1919-87) was born and lived his entire life in or near Turin, with the exception of the years 1944-45, when he was captured as an anti-Fascist partisan, deported to Auschwitz, and then released into war-torn Europe. He was the author of such acclaimed works as If This is a Man, The Periodic Table and The Drowned and the Saved.
Leonardo De Benedetti (1898-1983), also a native of Turin, was captured and deported to Auschwitz in the same year as Levi. After liberation, he resumed his work as a physician.
Review :
"One of the most important and gifted writers of our time."
—Italo Calvino
"The triumph of human identity and worth over the pathology of human destruction glows virtually everywhere in Levi's writing.... Time and time again we are moved by his narratives of how men refuse erasure."
—Toni Morrison
"Primo Levi's poise was one of the greatest achievements in the history of the human spirit. His writing restored the honor of humanism after Auschwitz."
—Leon Wieseltier
"Whether as witness or imaginative artist, Levi stands high among the truly essential European writers of the past century."
—Michael Dirda, Washington Post
"Their unvarnished testimony speaks volumes about the weight of responsibility felt by survivors such as Levi to ensure that the world never forgot the 'insane dream of building a thousand-year empire upon millions of corpses and slaves'."
—The Sydney Morning Herald
"Levi writes of unspeakable things with charity, clarity and objectivity."
—Sunday Times
"The publication of Auschwitz Testimonies may go some way to fulfil Levi's 40-year post-war odyssey to bear witness to 'the history of today, whose violence is the child of that violence which, by sheer chance, we managed to survive'."
—The Morning Star
