Shelly Cline, historian and director of education at the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education, discusses Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi with the Library’s Kaite Stover. The two talk about how the work, first published in 1947, factors into the exhibition Not Long Ago, Not Far Away at Union Station, in which it’s quoted extensively.

Levi (1919-1987) was a Jewish chemist who survived in Auschwitz for 10 months. As a scientist, Levi took a research-driven approach to writing Survival in Auschwitz. It was one of the first accounts of life in the death camp and remains a significant work of Holocaust literature. Levi later went on to write collections of poetry and stories as well as a novel.