Primo LeviThe Reawakening

This work tends to be overshadowed by Levi's earlier Survival in Auschwitz even though this is a very important book as well. Too often when people study WWII they tend to stop their research at the end of the war in 45. The problem with this is that the war is really only one chapter in the story. The same is true of the Holocaust as well. For the victims "liberation" was often anything but, and many times the road of liberation could be just as cruel and merciless as the camps themselves.This is the importance of The Reawakening. It tells the rest of the story. This book gives readers a first hand look at the world of post hostilities Europe, and shows readers the difficulties faced by those few to survive the horrors of Auschwitz. Levi gives us a personal account of what life was like trying to pick up the pieces of shattered lives in the chaotic and sometimes anarchic world in which survivors found themselves after their "liberation". Readers are left to understand that the world did not magically revert back to sanity when the Nazis were pushed back from territories formerly under their control. Instead with cruel irony thousands succumbed to the deprivations of the camps in the days and weeks that followed their liberation so that liberation cruelly came too late.Primo Levi does an exquisite job detailing life after liberation and the long, tortuous journey home. His eloquence in describing the mundane, while at the same time opening a window to the psychological aspects of his experiences, makes the reading experience both enlightening and entertaining. There are thousands of studies that have been done detailing the experiences of survivors, but in little more than 200 pages Levi does as much to enlighten as many of these. His ability to describe the boredom and monotony of post liberation life for a survivor while at the same time enthralling his reader is a unique gift possessed by few writers. This is what makes his story so powerful. He brings readers into his world effortlessly, and it is so natural to find the humanness in his story and his characters that one does not have to put forth any effort whatsoever to empathize with him and his characters.A person can read hundreds of thousands of pages detailing the history of these events, yet they will still lack a fundamental understanding of these events if they neglect these two books. These are essential books for understanding this history.

I read Levi’s more famous book about his horror at auschwitz and was profoundly moved. However, nothing he described about the Lager was surprising. This book is about the period after his liberation thanks to the Red Army and his struggle to return to Italy. Most of the book takes place in Russia and I’ve never read anything like it, what it was like immediately after a country has come back from absolute devastation to triumphant over the most despicable enemy imaginable. Although this book was banned in the Soviet Union because of its negative portrayal of Russia and in particular its army, the author clearly was fascinated by the country and admired its people so unlike his own. It made want to go to Russia, which I’ve only visited once, a wonderful week in St. Petersbur. In addition, this edition has a thoughtful afterward in which the author answers several of the most commonly asked questions during his his decades of educating about what the Germans did.

This book is a mandatory follow-up to "Survival in Auschwitz". Even if you have seen the film version ("The Truce" 1997), as I have, you still need to read this book. They are similar and dissimilar, both great parts of this amazing true story. Primo Levi is a master and this trilogy (Survival in Auschwitz, The Reawakening and Moments of Reprieve) are his finest arts. I very rarely read a book more than once but I keep coming back to these.

by an incredible man.

This is a great book, a true classic. This print edition ISBN 0020223706 First Collier Books Edition 1987 is a frustrating edition. There is not enough white space on the side margins, so you have to break to spine in order to read the beginning or end of the sentences. So I would recommend this book, but not the First Collier 1987 Edition.

Required though of post-WWII war on the Russian and European front. Worth reading by any student of modern history. Read along with his accounts of German death camps and best experienced as part of that group, not a single work.

came as expected

good book

Not sure why Levi manages to get his books published,they are always muddled jumping from one year and backto an earlier year,his books are too frustrating to follow,I put his books in the bin,before attempting to finish them.