As the Holocaust Documentation & Education Center continues to feature and offer a wide variety of topics on the Holocaust, today we are adding the following to our list from Classrooms Without Borders in partnership with Rodef Shalom Congregation and the University of Pittsburgh Jewish Studies Program:
Program: “Survival in Auschwitz” by Primo Levi: Book Talk with Professor Lina Insana
Date: Monday, January 4, 2021
Time: 4:00 PM
Platform: This event will take place online and is free to the public.
Please note registration is required and will close at 3:00 PM. Please click here to register.
To view the program in full please click here.
Dr. Lina Insana, with Classrooms Without Borders educator Kate Lukaszewicz, will speak about Primo Levi’s biographical novel, “Survival in Auschwitz”.
The Italian republication in 1958 of Primo Levi’s “If This Is A Man” was at the forefront of Europe’s emergent understanding of the Holocaust as a radically new kind of event – one whose Survivors and their stories were not simply military prisoners of war or political prisoners, and necessitating new narrative strategies and essentially a new representational language. Less well known in the US than in Europe, Primo Levi and his memoir (published as “Survival in Auschwitz” in the US) indeed had a central role in defining the ethical and representational stakes of Holocaust testimony with fundamental notions such as the “grey zone” and the “Musselman.” In this book talk, Lina Insana and Kate Lukaszewicz will discuss the importance of Levi’s book; Levi’s strategies for conveying his experience as an Italian Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz; and the enduring power of Levi’s challenge to his readers.
