Page 98 - BBC History - September 2017

My history hero

“His book about his time in
Auschwitz doesn’t just remind
readers of the Holocaust’s
full horror, it helps keep us on
our toes and alerts us to the
warning signs”

Television presenter Nick Hewer
chooses
Primo Levi

1919!87

Primo Levi in Turin, 1981. “His wisdom and humour helped him
through his ordeal in the hell of Auschwitz,” says Nick Hewer

rimo Levi was an Italian-Jewish chemist, author and blame them for collaborating with the Germans: for he under-
Holocaust survivor. His best-known works are If This stood that they were simply doing all they could to survive the hell
Is a Man (1947), his account of the year he spent as a that was Auschwitz.
Pprisoner in Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland during
the Second World War, and The Periodic Table (1975), a collec- What was his finest hour?
tion of short stories named after chemical elements. He died It’s got to be If This Is a Man, his almost clinical account of being
after falling from the third floor of the block of flats where he taken prisoner by the Nazis in Italy and ending up in Auschwitz.
lived in Turin. The coroner ruled that it was suicide. It is a great tool to ensure that we never forget the Holocaust and
to guard against genocide of any type anywhere in the world.
When did you first hear about Primo Levi? Anti-Semitism is a very light sleeper, in Britain as well as in other
I had a Jewish uncle – a wonderful man from Frankfurt, free countries. It’s always there just below the surface. And his book
of hatred – who my Irish aunt married after he was sent to his doesn’t just remind readers of the Holocaust’s full horror, it helps
family’s London office before the war. The poor man lost his keep us all on our toes, and alerts us to the warning signs and to
family during the conflict – they were murdered by the ensure that it never happens again.
Germans in Auschwitz, and I think it was that which initially
fuelled my interest in the Holocaust and inspired me to read Is there anything you don’t particularly admire about him?
Primo Levi’s shocking memoir of his time there, when I was Not really. He was an extraordinary individual with precious
in my twenties. qualities. The poor man eventually committed suicide… it was
probably to do with the guilt of the survivor.
What kind of person was he?
Levi was an educated person – an industrial chemist actually – Have you visited Auschwitz?
who came from a fairly well-to-do family in Turin. He’d had I visited it in the winter about 15 years ago. It’s a terrible place but
a classical education. Then he suddenly found himself in this going there jolts you into realising why it’s so important that we
appalling camp where everyone was stripped down to nothing – remain on the lookout for anti-Semitism today, when there is still
in fact the prisoners were known as ‘things’. When faced with a great deal of racism about.
terrible choices and physical disability, one’s social norms and
instincts are reduced to silence. So all that culture and learning If you could meet Primo Levi, what would you ask him?
he had acquired over the years counted for nothing. Life in the I’d have been very humbled to have met him and in all probability
camp was all about the demolition of humanity. Yet his wisdom, lost for words.
understanding and humour helped him through the ordeal. Nick Hewer was talking to York Membery

What made him a hero? Nick Hewer presents the Channel 4 quiz show Countdown. Prior to that,
The way he survived the 11 months he spent in Monowitz, part of he was an adviser to Lord Sugar on the BBC One series The Apprentice
the vast Auschwitz concentration camp complex, and then went SHUTTERSTOCK-REX/GETTY IMAGES
on to write such a remarkably frank but not self-pitying memoir DISCOVER MORE
of the experience. He details the cruelty of the Kapos [the trustee LISTEN AGAIN
inmates who supervised the prisoners] and the Sonderkomman- E The writer Edmund de Waal discussed Primo Levi
dos [death-camp prisoners who oversaw the burning of the on an episode of BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives
bodies of their fellow Jews]. But remarkably, Levi didn’t really bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01sj1td

98 BBC History Magazine