Primo Levi

Primo Michele Levi was born July 31, 1919, in the Italian city of Turin. After graduating from the University of Turin with a degree in chemistry, he joined the Italian resistance during World War II. He was captured by the Fascist militia in December 1943, placed in an internment camp in Italy, and sent to Auschwitz soon after. He survived at the camp for a year until it was liberated by Allied forces in January 1945. Afterward, he returned home to his life in Turin.

Levi wrote two memoirs of his experiences in the camps and his journey home, If This is a Man and The Truce; when published in the United States, these works were later renamed Survival in Auschwitz and The Reawakening, respectively. Levi worked at the SIVA chemical factory as a research chemist for most of his life, even as his writing came to worldwide renown...