31 July 1919 – 4 Av 5679
Primo Levi, one of the best-known survivors of the Holocaust, was born in Turin, Italy. Levi, a chemist, managed to stay alive in the labor camp of Auschwitz Monowitz for eleven months, until the camp was liberated by the Soviet Red Army. After the war, Levi returned to Turin and worked as an industrial chemist, using his spare time to write; his first book, If This Is A Man, was published in 1947 and is one of the most famous and influential in the genre of Holocaust memoirs. At first it was not very successful, but won him recognition after it was translated into English in 1959. He published further books, including The Periodic Table, and devoted more and more of his time to writing. Primo Levi fell to his death from the third floor of his apartment building’s inner stairwell, on April 11 (12 Nisan) 1987. He had been suffering from bouts of depression, and opinion is divided as to whether his death was accidental or suicide.