Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism: “”Primo Levi and Slave Labor at Auschwitz-III”

The Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism presents

Robert Gordon, Professor of Italian at the University of Cambridge: 

“Primo Levi and Slave Labor at Auschwitz-III.”

As a Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi was a powerful voice for testimony and for reflections on the ethical consequences of the genocide. But he was also, especially in his first work, If This Is a Man, a careful analyst of the material conditions of camp life, including the workings of economy and labor. This talk examines Levi’s account of labor in Auschwitz-III, and in particular the uses and meanings of the language of slavery in that context.