This was a re read..I am re reading old favourites during the corona virus lockdown... and although I can’t really call this a favourite, bearing in mind the subject matter, it is a book I will always keep on my shelves. I was in doubt about reading it in troubled times but it put everything into context.

I am quite sceptical (as in sceptical about using these true events for a story)of the more fictional accounts set around concentration camps during WW2...it is something about making money and literary fame out of a horrific true event. It seems that there is always a new bestseller out...telling stories that ‘use’ these events to get better sales....And I sometimes I do worry about being voyeuristic, seeking ever more horror...

BUT... this true and first hand account is different. It is so raw. It is told in a way that makes you feel Primo Levi’s heart-felt out pouring of the events that are burnt into his soul. It is by turns angry, incredulous, deeply horrific but also at times heart warming in the face of adversity. This book lets you feel, if nothing else (because how can you truly imagine what he describes) the lack of control, the disbelief that what he sees can truly happen to humans. He tells his account in a way that informs future generations in such a powerful way..

I really have no words to describe the story and it should be known to everyone living today on this planet...

On the book and writing I found it was written so well. It felt like a real story recounted. I could imagine hearing this as repeated stories over a lifetime. Much as my Uncle told us stories of his WW2 experiences...a rememberance coming to him and recounted over many years. This is what this book felt like. It doesn’t jump about in time but it is that incidents stand out amongst an overall backdrop. That is how it felt to read it. It was compelling and very readable.
I had read If This is Man before but not The Truce. I have seen reviews that described The Truce as boring....I just can’t believe that...I learnt so much from that. I just didn’t realise how difficult it was for people to get home from liberated camps. And at times, after liberation the people were in as much danger and almost more close to starvation than they had been before. I was really shocked by that...and although this section of the book is more meandering, that is what it was like in reality...it all made sense and fitted the events.
The book ends rather abruptly, I would have liked to hear more from Levi in retrospect..
The book is five stars, not because of the horror, not because I feel it deserves it in some way related to the horror Levi had to live through, but because it truly deserves it on its own merits. It is an amazing book