Primo Levi achieved worldwide fame with his first book, If This is a Man, an objective account of his struggle for survival following imprisonment in Auschwitz in 1943. Taken from his great work The Periodic Table, the three stories in this volume describe Levi's training as a chemist in wartime Turin against a backdrop of growing anti-Semitism.

In this place, too, nobody wasted many words teaching us how to protect ourselves from acids, caustics, fires, and explosions; it appeared that the Institute's rough and ready morality counted on the process of natural selection to pick out those among us most qualified for physical and professional survival. There were few ventilated hoods; each student, following his text's prescriptions, in the course of systematic analysis, conscientiously let loose into the air a good dose of hydrochloric acid and ammonia, so that a dense, hoary mist of ammonium chloride stagnated permanently in the lab, depositing minute scintillating crystals on the windowpanes. Into the hydrogen sulphide room with its murderous atmosphere withdrew couples seeking privacy and a few lone wolves to eat their snacks.

Through the murk and in the busy silence, we heard a Piedmontese voice say: 'Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus ferrum.' 'I announce to you a great joy. We have iron.' It was March 1939, and a few days earlier an almost identical solemn announcement ('Habemus Papam') had closed the conclave that had raised to Peter's Throne Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, in whom many put their hopes, since one must after all put one's hope in someone or something. The blasphemous announcement came from Sandro, the quiet one.

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If you like this book, you may also like these:

The Secret Annexe (from The Diary of Anne Frank) - Anne Frank
Rose, 1944 - Helen Dunmore
Death in the Bunker - Ian Kershaw