Introduction & Preface

• Engels
• Upper Secondary (Key Stage 4)
• GCSE

Goals for today 

Contextual introduction If this is a Man

Introduction of the author 

Preface and writing tone and purpose 

Published in Italian 1958

Translation English 1960

Who was targeted?

Who were the perpetrators?

What was the goal?

Where did it take place?

The Holocaust (literary means burnt offering) 

• homosexuals ​

• The genocide of European Jews during World War II by Nazi Germany was fuelled by antisemitism (hatred of Jews)​. 
  
• It was the implementation of Hitler’s “Final Solution”, an infamous euphemism for the Nazis’ plan to wipe out European Jewry to allow the “Aryan race” to triumph​
  
• This was part of a larger effort to eradicate ‘undesirables’ (Untermenschen: sub-humans) from Europe, so many other groups were targeted as well as Jews, including:​ ethnic Poles​, Romany Gypsies​, the disabled​, black and mixed race people, Political and religious activists​, homosexuals. 
  

Untermenschen from every area of Nazi-occupied Europe were rounded up and sent to camps​

​

This is a map showing the areas of control of the different powers in World War II. ​

​

Grey areas are those fully or partly occupied and controlled by Nazi Germany​

The Holocaust 

In the camps, occupants were subjected to appalling abuse, starvation, disease and torture​. There was also forced sterilisation, and other horrific medical experiments were carried out:​

• Live dissection without anaesthesia​
  
• Deliberate infection with tuberculosis and malaria​
  
• Injection with poisons or bacteria​
  

Various methods were used to exterminate those rounded up:​

• Labour camps / Mass shootings / Gas chambers / Death marches
  

The Holocaust 

In the camps, occupants were subjected to appalling abuse, starvation, disease and torture​. There was also forced sterilisation, and other horrific medical experiments were carried out:​

• Live dissection without anaesthesia​
  
• Deliberate infection with tuberculosis and malaria​
  
• Injection with poisons or bacteria​
  

Various methods were used to exterminate those rounded up:​

• Labour camps / Mass shootings / Gas chambers / Death marches
  

en.wikipedia.org

Principles of Nazi Ideology​

Fascist: far-right political philosophy, opposed to democracy and liberalism, characterised by dictatorships, use of force against opponents and strong regimentation of society and the economy​

Racial theories: used Darwinian ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest to support the idea of a master German race that must be protected from Jews, blacks, the disabled and other ' Untermenschen'  

Nazi

National Socialism = Nationalsozialismus 

Principles of Nazi Ideology​

Aggressive territorial expansion: conquering Europe to gain Lebensraum (living space) for the German people​

Women excluded from public life: women were to be relegated to Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church). Very traditional role expected – marrying and having children. Contraception and abortion were punishable by prison (only for ‘racially valuable’ women – abortions were encouraged for 'Untermenschen')​

Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler were both fascists​

How did Hitler rise to power? 

Primo Levi 

• An Italian Jewish chemist whose story of being taken to Auschwitz and surviving the Holocaust is the subject of this text. 
  
• Born in Turin, Italy in 1919, he was academically gifted and studied chemistry at the University of Turin. His degree certificate had the remark “of Jewish race” which prevented him from finding a suitable job.​
  
• A lifelong hiking enthusiast and member of the Italian resistance, he took to the foothills of the Alps and was arrested by the Fascist militia in 1943. He was detained in an Italian internment camp later taken over by the Nazis. He was transported from there to Auschwitz in Feb 1944.​
  
• Of the 650 Italian Jews in his transport, he was one of only twenty who left the camp alive in January 1945.​
  

• In his writings, Levi is appalled by how easily the Nazis were able to commit genocide while seeming to be so ordinary, because they were simply “doing their duty”. ​
• Similarly, Levi was appalled at how the people in the camps behaved: ​
• Jews who did the Nazis’ bidding and kept discipline, often cruelly​
  
• Many had to become incredibly selfish – theft and lies were common to survive​
  
• Prisoners would use and abuse each other to gain favours or advantages from the Nazis​
  
• ​Levi found the injustice of some people surviving and others not very difficult. 

If this is a Man

The text is difficult to categorise. It can be viewed as: 

• Memoir 
  
• Testimony 
  
• Diary 
  
• Moral Fable
  
• Confession 
• Consider, as you read, how you would categorise it. 

If this is a Man - what ideas and thoughts does this title suggest to you?

Survival in Auschwitz 

This is title that the translation of this text had in the USA. 

1. Why do you think that a direct translation of the Italian title: questo è un uomo, was not used for the American publication? 

2. What is lost or gained by changing the title of this text? 

3. What could be lost in translation? 

Discuss

Preface - why? 

First line: “It was my good fortune to be deported to Auschwitz only in 1944” 

Last line: “It seems to me unnecessary to add that none of the facts are invented”

1. How would you describe the tone of this writer? 

2. Why is the last line important? What are Levi's aims as he states them in the preface? 

A preface is an introduction at the beginning of a book, which explains what the book is about or why it was written.

Preface - why? 

“to furnish documentation for a quiet study of certain aspects of the human mind.”

“the structural defects of the book,” 

“the character of an immediate and violent impulse.”

Document 

Inform 

Participate

Emotional outpouring 

Logical reasoning 

Reading homework 

For Wednesday 8th May read chapters "The Journey" and "On the Bottom" - chapters 1 & 2 

Text in MB and in Teams 

A Brief History of the Jews