The Black Hole of Auschwitz

The Black Hole of Auschwitz
Author: Primo Levi
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2017-05-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1509526234

The Black Hole of Auschwitz brings together Levi’s writings on the Holocaust and his experiences of the concentration camp, as well as those on his own accidental status as a writer and his chosen profession of chemist. In this book Levi rails intelligently and eloquently against what he saw as the ebb of compassion and interest in the Holocaust, and the yearly assault on the veracity and moral weight of the testimonies of its survivors. For Levi, to keep writing and, through writing, to understand why the Holocaust could happen, was nothing less than a safeguard against the loss of a collective memory of the atrocities perpetrated against the Jewish people. This moving book not only reveals the care and conviction with which he wrote about the Holocaust, but also shows the range of Levi’s interests and the skill, thoughtfulness and sensitivity he brought to all his subjects. The consistency and moral force of Levi’s reflections and the clarity and intimacy of his style will make this book appeal to a wide readership, including those who have read and been moved by his masterpiece If This is a Man.

Escaping Auschwitz

Escaping Auschwitz
Author: Ruth Linn
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801441301

In 1944 a Slovakian Jew named Rudolf Vrba escaped from Auschwitz and wrote a document about the death camp activities. His words never reached the half million Hungarian Jews who were herded there. The story of that suppression is told here.

The Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi

The Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi
Author: Robert S. C. Gordon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2007-07-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139827405

Primo Levi (1919–87) was the author of a rich body of work, including memoirs and reflections on Auschwitz, poetry, science fiction, historical fiction and essays. In particular, his lucid and direct accounts of his time at Auschwitz, begun immediately after liberation in 1945 and sustained until weeks before his suicide in 1987, has made him one of the most admired of all Holocaust writer-survivors and one of the best guides we have for the interrogation of that horrific event. But there is also more to Levi than the voice of the witness. He has increasingly come to be recognised as one of the major literary voices of the twentieth century. This Companion brings together leading specialists on Levi and scholars in the fields of Holocaust studies, Italian literature and language, and literature and science, to offer a stimulating introduction to all aspects of the work of this extraordinary writer.

Primo Levi

Primo Levi
Author: Ian Thomson
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 934
Release: 2014-03-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1466866063

Primo Levi, author of Survival in Auschwitz and The Periodic Table, wrote books that have been called the essential works of humankind. Yet he lived an unremarkable existence, remaining until his death in the house in which he'd been born; managing a paint and varnish factory for thirty years; and tending his invalid mother to the last. Now, in a matchless account, Ian Thomson unravels the strands of a life as improbable as it was influential, the story of the most modest of men who became a universal touchstone of conscience and humanism. Drawing on exclusive access to family members and previously unseen correspondence, Thomson reconstructs the world of Levi's youth--the rhythms of Jewish life in Turin during the Mussolini years--as well as his experience in Auschwitz and difficult reintegration into postwar Italy. Thomson presents Levi in all his facets: his fondness for Louis Armstrong and fast cars, his insomnia and many near-catastrophic work accidents. Finally, he explores the controversy and isolation of Levi's later years, along with the increasing tensions in his life--between his private anguish and gift for friendship; his severe bouts of depression and passion for life and ideas; his pervasive dread and reasoned, pragmatic ethic. Praised in Britain as "the best sort of history" and "a model of its kind," Primo Levi: A Life is certain to take its place as the standard biography and a necessary companion to the works themselves.

Understanding Primo Levi

Understanding Primo Levi
Author: Nicholas Patruno
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
Total Pages: 204
Release: 1995
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781570030260

Levi's compulsion to record the Holocaust.

Memory and Mastery

Memory and Mastery
Author: Roberta S. Kremer
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0791490904

This book carefully examines the work of Primo Levi, one of the premier survivor-writers of the Holocaust and one of the outstanding Italian writers of the twentieth century. Artists, writers, and educators have all turned to Levi's writing as a source of inspiration and wisdom in coping with the tragedy of the Holocaust. Until recently, however, there have been few book-length works in English on Levi. This collection of essays from an international group of writers aims to bring greater critical attention to Levi's work by exploring all aspects of his oeuvre, including his science-fiction writings and his poetry, as well as his fictional and nonfictional writings about the Holocaust. Interdisciplinary in nature, this collection includes literary, psychoanalytic, linguistic, and historical approaches to Levi's work.

Survivance

Survivance
Author: Gerald Vizenor
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2008-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0803219024

In this anthology, eighteen scholars discuss the themes and practices of survivance in literature, examining the legacy of Vizenor's original insights and exploring the manifestations of survivance in a variety of contexts. Contributors interpret and compare the original writings of William Apess, Eric Gansworth, Louis Owens, Carter Revard, Gerald Vizenor, and Velma Wallis, among others.

Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians

Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians
Author: Donna M. Orange
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2015-11-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317386299

Winner of the Clinical catergory of the American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize for best books published in 2016 Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians: The Ethical Turn in Psychoanalysis, demonstrates the demanding, clinical and humanitarian work that psychotherapists often undertake with fragile and devastated people, those degraded by violence and discrimination. In spite of this, Donna M. Orange argues that there is more to human nature than a relentlessly negative view. Drawing on psychoanalytic and philosophical resources, as well as stories from history and literature, she explores ethical narratives that ground hope in human goodness and shows how these voices, personal to each analyst, can become sources of courage, warning and support, of prophetic challenge and humility which can inform and guide their work. Over the course of a lifetime, the sources change, with new ones emerging into importance, others receding into the background. Donna Orange uses examples from ancient Rome (Marcus Aurelius), from twentieth century Europe (Primo Levi, Emmanuel Levinas, Dietrich Bonhoeffer), from South Africa (Nelson Mandela), and from nineteenth century Russia (Fyodor Dostoevsky). She shows how not only can their words and examples, like those of our personal mentors, inspire and warn us; but they also show us the daily discipline of spiritual self-care, although these examples rely heavily on the discipline of spiritual reading, other practitioners will find inspiration in music, visual arts, or elsewhere and replenish the resources regularly. Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians will help psychoanalysts to develop a language with which to converse about ethics and the responsibility of the therapist/analyst. This is an exceptional contribution highly suitable for practitioners and students of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

The Holocaust

The Holocaust
Author: Paul R. Bartrop
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 478
Release: 2022-05-18
Genre: History
ISBN:

This volume provides an indispensable resource for anyone studying the Holocaust. The reference entries are enhanced by documents and other tools that make this volume a vital contribution to Holocaust research. This volume showcases a detailed look at the multifaceted attempts by Germany's Nazi regime, together with its collaborators, to annihilate the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust. Several introductory essays, along with a rich chronology, reference entries, primary documents, images, and a bibliography provide crucial information that readers will need in order to try to understand the Holocaust while undertaking research on that horrible event. This text looks not only at the history of the Holocaust, but also at examples of resistance (through armed violence, attempts at rescue, or the very act of survival itself); literary and cultural expressions that have attempted to deal with the Holocaust; the social and psychological implications of the Holocaust for today; and how historians and others have attempted to do justice to the memory of those killed and seek insight into why the Holocaust happened in the first place.

The End of the Holocaust

The End of the Holocaust
Author: Alvin H. Rosenfeld
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2011-04-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253000920

“An illuminating exploration that offers a worried look at Holocaust representation in contemporary culture and politics.” —H-Holocaust In this provocative work, Alvin H. Rosenfeld contends that the proliferation of books, films, television programs, museums, and public commemorations related to the Holocaust has, perversely, brought about a diminution of its meaning and a denigration of its memory. Investigating a wide range of events and cultural phenomena, such as Ronald Reagan’s 1985 visit to the German cemetery at Bitburg, the distortions of Anne Frank’s story, and the ways in which the Holocaust has been depicted by such artists and filmmakers as Judy Chicago and Steven Spielberg, Rosenfeld charts the cultural forces that have minimized the Holocaust in popular perceptions. He contrasts these with sobering representations by Holocaust witnesses such as Jean Améry, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Imre Kertész. The book concludes with a powerful warning about the possible consequences of “the end of the Holocaust” in public consciousness. “Forcefully written, as always, his new volume honors his entire life as teacher and writer attached to the principles of intellectual integrity and moral responsibility. Here, too, he demonstrates erudition and knowledge, a gift for analysis and astonishing insight. Teachers and students alike will find this book to be a great gift.” —Elie Wiesel “This remarkable new work of scholarship—written in accessible language and not in obscure academese—is exactly the Holocaust book the world needs now.” —Bill’s Faith Matters Blog “This book has monumental importance in Holocaust studies because it demands answers to the question how our culture is inscribing the Holocaust in its history and memory.” —Arcadia