Primo Levi, 34, farewell. Survivor of Auschwitz. Witness to the Holocaust

From the archives of ANSA / 1

The news of Primo Levi's suicide was on 11 April 1987

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KILLS WRITER PRIMO LEVI

(ANSA) - TURIN, 11 APRIL - WRITER PRIMO LEVI

KILLED THIS MORNING BY LAUNCHING IN THE 'TRUMPET OF THE STAIRS,

FROM THE THIRD FLOOR' RE UMBERTO 75, WHERE HE LIVED.

LEVI

DIED ON THE SHOT.

(CONTINUED).

PAU / FCL

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KILLS WRITER FIRST LEVI (2)

(ANSA) - TURIN, APRIL 11 - FIRST LEVI, WHO WAS 72 YEARS OLD,

LIVED ON THE THIRD FLOOR OF AN OLD, ELEGANT STABLE IN

THE

LADY

DISTRICT OF THE CROCETTA, TOGETHER WITH THE WIFE

LUCIA AND THE NOVANT-TWO-YEAR OLD MOTHER, PARALISED (AT HOME

THIS MORNING THERE WAS THE NURSE ASSISTING THE

ELDERLY LADY).

IN AN ADJACENT APARTMENT LIVES A SON

OF LEVI, RENZO (THE SECOND DAUGHTER, LISETTA, ALSO

LIVES IN

TURIN, BUT ELSEWHERE).

A FEW MINUTES BEFORE KILLING, PRIMO LEVI HAD RECEIVED A

VISIT FROM THE KEEPER OF THE BUILDING, JOLANDA GASPERI, WHO -

AS ALWAYS - WAS UP TO DELIVER

HIM

THE MAIL.

THE WRITER

HAD NORMALLY

ACCEPTED HIM

, WITHOUT POSSIBLE

TO DETECT ANY ABNORMAL SIGN IN HIS BEHAVIOR.

LA GASPERI WAS LITTLE BACK IN HER GUARDIOLA WHEN

HE

HEARD

A THUND, TURNED AROUND AND SAW THE

WRINKLED

BODY

OF THE WRITER LOWERED ON THE FLOOR, NEXT

TO THE ELEVATOR GATE.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE

WIFE OF LEVI

ARRIVED

, WHO WAS PREVIOUSLY GOING OUT TO DO THE SHOPPING

AND WHO, BACK HOME, FINDED IN FRONT OF THE CORPSE OF

HUSBAND.

THE FIRST RESCUERS HAVE IMMEDIATELY FOUND THAT FOR THE FIRST

LEVI THERE WAS NOTHING MORE TO DO: HE WAS DEAD ON THE SHOT.

(CONTINUED).

PAU-ST / FCL

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KILLS WRITER FIRST LEVI (3)

(ANSA) - TURIN, APRIL 11 - AMONG THE FIRST RESCUERS OF LEVI

THERE WAS ALSO ONE OF HIS FORMER SCHOOL

COMPANION, FROM

THE '' D 'AZEGLIO' 'HIGH SCHOOL,

DOCTOR FRANCESCO QUAGLIA, AGED 72, DENTIST, WHO HAS A

STUDIO IN THE SAME BUILDING.

LUCIA LEVI, AS SOON AS HAS SEEN THE

CORPSE OF HIS HUSBAND, HAS THROWED HIM IN THE NECK.

''

IT

WAS

AN EXCITING SCENE - QUAIL TELLED - LUCIA EMBRACED ME

IN TEARS AND TOLD ME 'HE WAS VERY TIRED,

DEMORALIZED' ''.

ALSO THE DOOR HAS CONFIRMED

THESE WORDS

TO THE 'FLYING WHEEL' AGENTS

.

'' HOWEVER - THE WOMAN SAID - DOCTOR LEVI

HAD NEVER MADE THIS SADNESS DISCOVERED.

HE WAS KIND

AS ALWAYS, EVEN THIS MORNING, WHEN I DELIVERED

HIM

THE

MAIL: ADVERTISING BROCHURES, A BOOK, A MAGAZINE ''.

ACCORDING TO WHAT THE POLICE WAS ESTABLISHED, A FEW INSTANTS

LATER, WHEN THE GASPERI RETURNED TO THE GROUND, LEVI

LAUNCHED INTO VACUUM.

FIRST LEVI - ACCORDING TO THE STORY OF FRANCESCO QUAGLIA '' HE WAS

VERY WORRIED ABOUT THE CONDITIONS OF THE MOTHER, HURT BY A HISTORY

FOR ABOUT A YEAR ''.

RECENTLY THE WRITER HAD BEEN

SUBJECTED TO A PROSTATE INTERVENTION.

'' TWENTY DAYS AGO -

ADDED DOCTOR QUAIL - HE WAS BACK HOME BUT SAYING HE

DID NOT FEEL GOOD ''.

(CONTINUED).

PAU / FCL

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KILLS WRITER FIRST LEVI (4)

(ANSA) - TURIN, 11 APR - AS SOON AS THE NEWS

OF THE WRITER'S DEATH SPREAD, THE CASA DI CORSO RE UMBERTO (WHERE

LEVI WAS BORN) WAS THE GOAL OF A PILGRIMAGE OF FRIENDS,

KNOWLEDGES, SIMPLE ESTIMATORS.

IN THE DAY, IN TURIN,

THE ARRIVAL OF THE SISTER OF LEVI, ANNAMARIA, WHO LIVES

IN ROME

, IS EXPECTED

.

THE SALMA DI LEVI WAS TRANSPORTED TO THE INSTITUTE OF

LEGAL MEDICINE TO UNDERGO AUTOPSY.

(HANDLE).

PAU / FCL

11-APR-87 14:04 NNNN

From the archives of ANSA / 2

The article 20 years after Levi's death

LEVI: 20 YEARS AGO SUICIDE OF THE WRITER OF THE SHOAH / ANSA

(by Maurizio Giammusso)

(ANSA) - ROME, APRIL 3 - Primo Levi has been

gone for

twenty years

; twenty years after that 11 April 1987, when he let himself

fall into the stairwell of his building in the center of

Turin. A suicide, at the age of 68, which grieved the readers of his

books, scattered throughout the countries of the world; but it did not surprise those who

knew

him

. The shadow of death, the suffering for what he had

seen and suffered in the concentration camp, the commitment to testify to the

absolute

evil

that had been the Nazi violence against the Jews

had accompanied him all his life. And they had made it one of the

most read and greatest writers of his time.

Even today, to know the tragedy of the Shoah you must

read If this is a man, written between 1945 and 1947;

even today to understand the loss of the survivors and the

long march (almost always on foot!) to return home

from

the

extreme edge of Europe incinerated by the war, one must

read La Tregua (1963).

Levi was born on July 31, 1919 in Turin, of

Jewish

parents

. He managed to graduate in chemistry with full marks,

despite the racial laws that came into force in '38. But on the

bachelor's degree there was the clarification: 'of Jewish race'.

Thus began his career as a chemist, in Milan, until

the German occupation. On 13 December 1943 he was captured

and transferred to the Fossoli collection camp. Here begins

his odyssey. It is February 22nd of '44. He will write in If This

is a Man: '' We had learned with relief our

destination, Auschwitz: a meaningless name, then it is

for us ''. In less than ten minutes all of us good men

were gathered in a group. What happened to the others, to the

women, to the children, to the elderly, we could not establish then

or after: the night swallowed them ', purely and simply' '.

In the extermination camp, prisoners shaved, clipped,

disinfected and dressed in striped trousers and jackets are in the

service of a rubber factory. They still do not know what

awaits

them

, nor the exact meaning of the number with which they

are branded as beasts. They have to work, eat,

sleep, obey and die.

Primo Levi is among the very few to return after a long

wandering in the Eastern countries. As a witness to so much horror, he

feels the duty to tell, so that everyone knows and

wonders why, thus also helping the survivors to

work through their pain. From

this point on,

writing in his life will go

hand in hand with his work as a chemist and

his scientific interests.

In '47 Se questo e 'un uomo was published by De Silva,

with modest results. But in 1956, when Einaudi (who previously

rejected it) reissues it, it becomes a world bestseller and

the symbolic book of a tragic era. Subsequently he writes

La Tregua, which wins the first edition of Campiello. Then he

collects his stories in Natural Stories (1967) and Vizio di

forma (1971); then with the star key he wins the

Strega

Prize

. Other books follow, up to the novel If not now when?

which wins Viareggio and Campiello. Meanwhile Levi

also

works

as a translator. In October '84 he published 'Ad ora

uncertain' and in December 'Dialogo' in which he reports a conversation

with the physicist Tullio Regge. In November of the same year the

American edition of the Periodic System was published and in January '85

the collection of writings The Other Job. In 1986 he published I

sommersi ei salvati. Neither his intellectual creativity, nor his

many awards nor his special way of

looking with humor even the most serious situations

held

him

back from that final flight.

(HANDLE).

ALREADY

03-APR-07 13:29 NNNN