This evening in the Robert Emmet Theatre, a series of readings from writer and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi were carried out in honour of this year’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which takes place on Saturday.
The talk was organised by the Italian Institute of Culture, the Herzog Centre and the Trinity Centre for Literary Translation. Readers included Sebastian Barry, author of acclaimed novel Days Without End; Catherine Punch, an arts consultant; and Oliver Sears, a second-generation survivor of the Holocaust.
Primo Levi, a Jewish Italian born in 1919, was a prisoner in Auschwitz before the camp was liberated in 1945. He began his writing career the following year, writing the first draft of what was to become one of his best-known works If This is a Man, a memoir of his time in the camp.
He wrote many more novels, short stories and poems in the remainder of his career, including a collection of short stories published in 1975 about his experience as a Jewish scientist under a fascist regime, The Periodic Table.
The lecture began with a short introduction to Primo Levi and a description of the event as being about memory and giving voice to those affected by the atrocities of the Holocaust. This was followed by a short screening of a reading of Dante’s Inferno in the piece’s native Italian, read by Roberto Benigni. Benigni’s reading, which consisted of 47 verses all recited from memory, was highly impassioned. The verses are an integral part of Levi’s book.
Sears was the first to begin reading. The passage chosen was a section from If This is a Man called “Canto of Ulysses”, in which Levi describes a moment from the camp in which he had a discussion with Jean, a fellow prisoner with an affinity for languages, regarding the translation of Dante’s Inferno, just as they were surrounded by the horror of the camp.
Sears’s reading was resolute and solemn, expressing the weight of the words to the silent lecture theatre.
Barry took over from Sears, and brought an incredibly humane tone to his reading, adding meaning to every syllable he spoke. The award-winning novelist managed to seemingly involve himself in Levi’s words.
Punch took a more reflective tone and spoke with great consideration, as if she were contemplating how Levi might have read it. The passage ended with a harrowing moment that came when Levi described how he felt he must finish his discussion with Jean about Inferno before they queue for food as “tomorrow he or I might be dead, or we might never see each other again”.
After this, Sears once again stood to speak, this time reading the first chapter of The Truce, in which Levi describes the liberation of the camp. The scenes depicted were horrific and visceral, and Sears placed great emphasis on Levi’s condemnation of the fascist regime. In the passage, Levi describes the spread of fascist thought as an infection to be eradicated. The experience of survivors, he said, must not be dismissed.
The event was a respectful, thoughtful tribute to victims of the atrocities of the Holocaust, and to the work and life of Primo Levi. Each speaker brought something unique, with all three bringing out aspects of the work of Levi that invoked a sense of real gravity in those listening. Indeed, it proves that Levi will be forever able to give a voice to those affected by the horrors of history.
