Ngulas: If This Is a Man by Primo Levi (1947)
Pengarang : Primo Levi Judul Asli : Se questo è un uomo Penerjemah : Stuart Woolf Asal : Italia Bahasa : Italia Genre : Memoir Penerbit : De Silva (Italia) Einaudi (Italia) The Orion Press (Inggris) Publikasi : 1947 1959 (Inggris)
This autobiography/memoir is written by Primo Levi (24), an Italian chemist and a Jew who was captured by the Fascist Militia in 1943. He was sent to live in a ghetto before being deported to the main Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland. Here, he began his struggle to live under specialized oppression. The kind where he and thousand other prisoners deprived of freedom/rights were sorted to perform mandatory exhausting work while being constantly beaten and hungry every day. He mentioned, “How can one hit a man without anger?” about the violence the prisoners received from Nazi.
After months in the camp or Lager, hope is no longer a powerful means to stay alive. But Primo teaches us all in the most realistic and undramatic way that a need to tell others, to bear witness of the whole thing inside the concentration camp is a great factor other than luck that lead him to salvation.
This is our very first time reading a book about the holocaust ever since we had ourselves aware of the term. Truthfully, the reading was quiet challenging but we are glad to have chosen to read this one out of the other nine - although we’re convinced that all of them have an equal quality content based on our lecturer’s recommendation, we believe If This is a Man is an exceptional must read. Not because of its authenticity, but merely because of its idiosyncratic style of bringing first-hand experience to the innocent, the one like my friend and I.
The thing I like about this book is its lucidness. It feels like we clearly see the condition of the prisoners, how they were initially treated, how some were deluded into thinking there was still hope while the others gave up and be indifferent about the future, if there were even a future. The writing is detailed; almost accurate, very different from what my friend and I usually read (we both are very accustomed to hyperbolic style and apparent ups and downs style, since we often watch Korean drama). We discussed later that it might be because he is a scientist that he tends to write rationally – which is both a good thing and a bad thing.
It is a good thing because it tells precisely what happened, but it is slightly became bad thing or rather a pity that readers kind of skip out the heart wrenching emotion. If you are the kind of reader that look for the aching feeling on your heart when you read about something so terribly unfair and horrendous, you will not really feel it here. But if you are looking for a detailed focus of the actual life of prisoners and their struggle against Nazism, this is the perfect book for you.
In the end, we’d still want to recommend this book to everyone, especially one who lives in a comfort life. One so easily blinded by ignorance.










