History Literature / IfThisIsAMan

* SecularHero: Primo, a lifelong atheist.

* YiddishAsASecondLanguage: Among the Eastern Europeans; the Italian Jews had difficulties integrating with the rest of the camp because of they couldn't speak this.

* DeathOfAChild: All of them, to the last child in the transport from Fossoli.
* EmptyShell: Null Achtzehn.

* LanguageBarrier
* NeatFreak: Steinlauf.

* InfantImmortality: Averted to the last child in the transport from Fossoli.

''Se questo è un uomo'' (USA title - ''Survival in Auschwitz''). The first part of the memoir of Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who survived the Holocaust, originally published in 1947, and followed by ''Literature/TheTruce'', which describes his difficult [[TheHomewardJourney Homeward Journey]].

* TheHomewardJourney

-> ''"Consider if this is a man''
-> ''Who works in the mud,''
-> ''Who does not know peace,''
-> ''Who fights for a scrap of bread,''
-> ''Who dies because of a yes or a no.''

* ChummyCommies: As in the preceding work, but turned on its head: previously the occupant of Nazi-run extermination camps, Primo (and other Jews and camp survivors) are now occupants of Soviet-run refugee camps. Fortunately, the two arrangements are fundamentally different, both in intent and operation. Most of the novel is set in various military-managed refugee camps, ending at Starye Dorogi in the USSR proper, and are genuinely for refugees rather than prisoner: relaxed security (almost to the point of absurdity), reliable food (a feast compared to Auschwitz, he notes), and a toleration of autonomy, self-expression, and even trouble-making of the occupants. Even more so, Primo sees the victorious Soviets, of various nationalities, as having little in common except their shared stark contrast with the Germans: they are [[OrderVersusChaos bureaucratically inefficient rather than ruthlessly efficient]], surprisingly evenhanded versus brutally hierarchical, and behind their militarized exterior, possess fairness and "certain kindness inherent to their race" but very little talent for orderly management (and little concern over that lacking). His worst experiences and harshest critiques of the Red Army are relatively mild, especially next to his clear fondness for certain individuals, like teenage Soviet soldiers or the military women employed as doctors or secretaries for the camp management, and it's hard not to see his overall picture as very positive, especially when one considers [[ColdWar the attitude of the time]] which was unfriendly to his opinions.

* ChummyCommies: As in the preceding work, but turned on its head: previously the occupant of Nazi-run extermination camps, Primo (and other Jews and camp survivors) are now occupants of Soviet-run refugee camps. Fortunately, the two arrangements are fundamentally different, both in intent and operation.
** Most of the novel is set in various military-managed refugee camps, ending at Starye Dorogi in the USSR proper, and are genuinely for refugees rather than prisoner: relaxed security (almost to the point of absurdity), reliable food (a feast compared to Auschwitz, he notes), and a toleration of autonomy, self-expression, and even troublemaking of the occupants. Even more so, Primo sees the victorious Soviets, of various nationalities, as having little in common except their shared stark contrast with the Germans: they are [[OrderVersusChaos bureaucratically inefficient rather than ruthlessly efficient]], surprisingly evenhanded versus brutally hierarchical, and behind their militarized exterior, possess fairness and "certain kindness inherent to their race" but very little talent for orderly management (and little concern over that lacking). His worst experiences and harshest critiques of the Red Army are relatively mild, especially next to his clear fondness for certain individuals, like teenage Soviet soldiers or the military women employed as doctors or secretaries for the camp management, and it's hard not to see his overall picture as very positive, especially when one considers [[ColdWar the attitude of the time]] whom were less friendly of his opinions.
** DirtyCommies: In the appendix, Primo also laments the autocratic tactics (particularly censorship) employed in the USSR that had come to infamy in under the Nazis in Germany, though (with the publishing of the expose ''The Gulag Archipelago'') he refutes the comparison between the Soviet labor prison system (and prisons in the Colonial world) and the German extermination camps like Auschwitz, arguing that while they were still deplorable and lethal for many inhabitants, even at their worst they lacked the deliberate mission of extermination, and by the 1980s had downscaled to the thousands (according to Amnesty International) and still allowed prisoners to communicate via letters and packages, in stark contrast to Auschwitz (as he had witnessed it), with its over ninety percent mortality rate and massive scale of millions. He characterizes them as "[standing] out as an ugly stain on Soviet Socialism...[but] be regarded as a barbaric legacy from the [[UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia czarist absolutism]] from which the Soviet rulers have been unable or have not wished to liberate themselves..." though emphasizes his view as a survivor of Auschwitz.

* InfantImmortality: Averted to the last child in the transport from Fossili.

* EverybodysDeadDave: Of the 650 people who were transported to Auschwitz from Fossili internment camp, only Primo, Leonardo and Cesare live to return home.

* YanksWithTanks: Primo's first personal encounter with the U.S. Army (in Austria, having been transported in a Soviet refugee train) is highly memorable, being bathed and sprayed with insecticide "...DDT, an absolutely novelty to us, like the jeeps, penicillin, and the atomic bomb, which we learnt about soon afterwards."

* ActionGirl: Presumable Olga, as she was formerly a Croat partisan.

* ChummyCommies: As many of the non-Jewish prisoners are communists.

* ChummyCommies / DirtyCommies: Zig-Zagged.

-> ''Consider if this is a man''

->''"You who live safe in your warm houses, you who find, returning in the evening, hot food and friendly faces: consider [[TitleDrop if this is a man]] who works in the mud, who does not know peace, who fights for a scrap of bread, who dies because of a yes or a no. Consider if this is a woman without hair and [[YouAreNumberSix without name]], with no more strength to remember, her [[DullEyesOfUnhappiness eyes empty]] and her womb cold like a frog in winter. Meditate that this came about: I commend these words to you. Carve them in your hearts at home, in the street, going to bed, rising; repeat them to your children."''
-> ''"Or may your house fall apart, may illness impede you, may your children turn their faces from you."''

* YiddishAsASecondLanguage: Among the Eastern Europeans.

* EverybodysDeadDave: Of the 650 people who were transported to Auschwitz from Fossoli internment camp, only Primo, Leonardo and Cesare live to return home.

''Se questo è un uomo'' (USA title - ''Survival in Auschwitz''). The first part of the memoir of Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who survived the Holocaust, originally published in 1947, and followed by ''Literature/TheTruce'', which details Levi's difficult [[TheHomewardJourney Homeward Journey]].

''Se questo è un uomo'' (USA title - ''Survival in Auschwitz''). The first part of the memoir of Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who survived the Holocaust, originally published in 1947, and followed by ''Literature/TheTruce''.