Which Holocaust? Primo Levi and the Field of Holocaust Memory in Post-War Italy

Abstract

The article examines Primo Levi's role as the prime mediator of discussion and understanding of the Holocaust in post-war Italian culture. It sets out some of the issues at stake in dealing with 'national' memories of a 'transnational' event such as the Holocaust, as well as issues specific to the Italian case. It then situates Levi generally within the cultural sphere before moving on to analyse the particular shape he implicitly gave to the Holocaust in his public activism and in his occasional writings. To this end, it analyses in particular his own edited schools' edition of Se questo è un uomo, his promotions of other writers on the Holocaust over several decades, and patterns of language and interpretation in certain of his key public interventions.