Shema

Primo Levi

1946

You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider whether this is a man,
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no.
Consider whether this is a woman,
Without hair or name
With no more strength to remember
Eyes empty and womb cold
A…
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Creator Bio

Primo Levi

1919–1987
A chemist and a writer of memoirs, short stories, poems, essays, and novels, Primo Levi was an Italian-born Holocaust survivor and one of the foremost Italian writers of the aftermath of World War II. He studied chemistry at the University of Turin, graduating in 1941. Subsequently he wrote for the resistance magazine Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Freedom) and joined a group of Italian partisans. In 1943, he was captured and deported to Auschwitz. He was liberated in 1945 by the Soviets. Levi won the first annual Premio Campiello Literary Award in 1963 and the Premio Viareggio in 1982. He died in Turin.

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