Primo Levi

Author and Auschwitz survivor Yehiel Dinur dies of cancer at 84

By Tom Segev

Ha’aretz, Monday, July 23, 2001

[http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=55053
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Author Yehiel Dinur, who used the pen name K. Zetnik, died last Tuesday of cancer at his home in Tel Aviv, at the age of 84.[…].

[…]

Dinur, a survivor of Auschwitz, was one of the first Israeli authors to write about the Holocaust.[…]

His work was translated into dozens of languages. His books contained detailed descriptions of the horrors of Auschwitz, including torture, cannibalism, and sexual abuse of children.[…]

Dinur appeared as a prosecution witness in the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. Describing his two years in Auschwitz, he said: “Time there runs differently than it does here, on the face of the earth … Residents of that planet had no names. They had no parents and no children. They didn’t dress as we dress here. They weren’t born there and didn’t give birth. They breathed according to different laws of nature. They didn’t live according to the laws of the world here, and they didn’t die. Their name was a number…”

[…]

With time, as Israel’s cultural memory developed, there were those who opposed teaching K. Zetnik’s books in the schools and even described them as kitsch bordering on pornography. Dinur himself worked throughout his life to distribute his books to schools, even setting up a multi-million shekel foundation that worked with the Education Ministry on this goal. But with the passing years, many schools preferred to teach the works of Primo Levi instead.

[…]

The revelation of his identity during the Eichmann trial apparently put him under great stress. At one point, speaking of the other prisoners in Auschwitz, he said: “They went away from me, they always went away from me, and always left me behind… I see them, they are looking at me, I see them…” When Judge Moshe Landau attempted to interrupt him and get him to answer the prosecutor’s questions, Dinur suddenly collapsed, fainting, in what is today remembered as one of the most dramatic moments of the trial.

[…]

In the early 1970s, Dinur traveled to Holland to undergo a new and controversial treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The treatment involved receiving injections of LSD that caused him to enter a trance, during which he would describe his Auschwitz experiences and the attendant psychiatrist would videotape them.

[…]

The man who bore witness

Primo Levi, an obsessive chronicler of his life as a Holocaust survivor, gets a biography from someone else.

PRIMO LEVI: Tragedy of an Optimist By Myriam Anissimov Overlook Press, 452 pages

_Globe_and_Mail_ ([email protected]) | Saturday, March 6, 1999 |

KENNETH SHERMAN

Two hundred years from now, readers who wish to know our century will turn to the prose of Primo Levi, survivor of Auschwitz.

Levi was born into a cultured middle-class Jewish family in Turin in 1919. Myriam Anissimov, in this first full-scale biography of the Italian author and chemist, records that Levi’s father, Cesare, was an electrical engineer and an avid reader of literature. From him Levi learned that the humanities and the sciences need not be separate worlds.

[…]

Levi was fortunate to have entered university before the Fascists instituted their racial laws banning Jews from higher education. Still, no professor of chemistry was willing to supervise his thesis. The young physics lecturer Nicola Dallaporta helped Levi get his degree. He told Levi after the war that Providence had chosen him to become the chronicler of the slave-labour camp, a concept Levi refused to accept since his Auschwitz experiences had convinced him that there was no Providence, and no God.

[…]

Upon his return to Turin, Levi felt the need to bear witness: “I had a torrent of urgent things to tell the civilized world. I felt the tattooed number on my arm burning like a sore.” But the civilized world was not very interested in what he had to say. No large publisher would accept his powerful account, Survival in Auschwitz. Anissimov reports that the book received a few positive reviews but was “distributed rather than sold.”

[…]

On the morning of April 11, 1987, Levi plunged down the stairwell of his house, an apparent suicide. His death shocked his readers. How could this sober and diligent man, who had cast a rationalist’s penetrating light on our century’s most enormous crime, fall into the abyss? Anissimov does not provide a definitive answer, but presents a constellation of facts. She reports that after his return from Auschwitz, Levi experienced severe bouts of depression that he found increasingly difficult to overcome. She describes the complications he was having recovering from a prostate operation, his anxiety over his senile, 91-year-old mother, as well as his despondency over the media coverage being given to professional Holocaust deniers.

[…]

Kenneth Sherman’s essay Primo Levi and the Unlistened-to Story can be found in his book Void and Voice.

We Get Letters

On Jul 17, 2004, at 9:53 AM, Ken Sherman wrote:

I note that you have used my book review of “The Tragedy of an Optimist” on your website. I cannot see why, since the review neither supports nor denies your claims. It is merely the review of a biography. I would ask that you please remove it from your site.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Sherman

Mr. Sherman,

Thanks for contacting me about the contents of my website.

Actually, I have NOT used your book review: I have excerpted portions of it. By my count, I have used fewer than 400 words, and my understanding is that the doctrine of fair use allows me to quote up to 500 words, so I believe I am within my rights in presenting this information.

As to its relevance, I found it of interest, and I feel that others may, too.

HHP Webmaster

July 18, 2004 7:52:08 AM PDT

Mr. Sir,

Thanks for your reply. I sold the electronic rights for that review to the Globe and Mail and will pass this matter along to their legal department.

TO: Editor/Publisher, The Holocaust Historiography Project

It has been brought to our attention that you have electronically reprinted copyrighted material on your web site. We request that you cease and desist reprint of material by Mr. Kenneth Sherman immediately. Our Policy does not grant any electronic publication.

We thank you for your cooperation.

Regards,

Francine Bellefeuille
Permissions Editor
The Globe and Mail
Phone: 416-585-5257.
Fax: 416-585-5670
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 16:54:25 -0700

To: “Bellefeuille, Francine” [[email protected]]
July 21, 2004 4:54:25 PM PDT

Dear Ms. Bellefeuille,

Thank you for contacting me. Please let me know what your “Fair Use” policies are.

HHP Webmaster