Primo Levi

As mentioned above, before Levi was detained in Auschwitz, he was disciplined in chemistry. This biographical contextualization is established in a New York Times article, “The Complete Works of Primo Levi.” Writer Edward Mendelson reveals that until the age of twenty-four, or until he was taken captive, Levi “studied chemistry at Turin and worked as a chemist.” This small fact of his life is presented to have a great deal of power in his memoir. Levi’s background in chemistry not only increased the duration of his life, it led to his insight that “the Lager [camp] was pre-eminently a gigantic biological and social experiment” (Levi 80). Additionally, in an interview, Levi once stated, “I write precisely because I am a chemist” (Mendelson,