June Books 23) Survival in Auschwitz, by Primo Levi
A tough but necessary read. Levi was one of the lucky ones: not killed immediately on arrival at Auschwitz; he was then too ill to be evacuated with most of the remaining prisoners when the camp was abandoned, but healthy enough to survive the ten days until the Russians arrived. In between he gives an unforgettable picture of life in unspeakable conditions, where the prisoner's brutalised consciousness revolves around theft and the impossibility of personal hygiene, as something to focus on other than the crematorium chimneys in the next compound. It's a very short book but packs a powerful punch. (And it is a shame that the translators abandoned the original title, Se questo è un uomo / If This Is A Man.)
