Editing Primo Levi (section)

=== Auschwitz ===
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2007-0057, IG-Farbenwerke Auschwitz.jpg|thumb|IG Farben factory in [[Monowitz]] (near Auschwitz) 1941<br />{{Coord|50.036094|19.275534|display=inline|region:PL-MP_type:landmark|name=Site of Buna Werke plant approximately 10km or 6.2 miles from Auschwitz}}]]
[[File:FARBEN DWORY.png|thumb|upright=1.3|[[Monowitz concentration camp#Buna Werke|Buna Werke]], [[Monowitz]] and subcamps]]

Fossoli was taken over by the Germans, who started arranging the deportations of the Jews to eastern concentration and death camps. On 21 February 1944, on the second of the transports, Levi and other inmates were transported in twelve cramped cattle trucks to [[Monowitz concentration camp|Monowitz]], one of the three main camps in the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. Levi (record number 174517) spent eleven months there before [[liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp|the camp was liberated]] by the [[Red Army]] on 27 January 1945. Before the arrival of the Russians, inmates were sorted according to whether they could work or not. An acquaintance of Levi's said that neither classification would make any difference in the end. He declared he was unable to work and was killed immediately. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his transport, Levi was one of only twenty who left the camps alive. The average life expectancy of a new entrant to the camp was three to four months.

Levi knew some German from reading German publications on chemistry, and he worked to adjust quickly to life in the camp without attracting the attention of the privileged inmates. He used bread to pay a more experienced Italian prisoner for German lessons and understanding how to cope in Auschwitz. He was given a smuggled soup ration each day by [[Lorenzo Perrone]], an Italian civilian bricklayer who was working at Auschwitz as a [[forced labour]]er. Levi's professional qualifications were useful to the Germans and, in mid-November 1944, he secured a position as an assistant in [[IG Farben]]'s [[Monowitz Buna Werke|Buna Werke]] laboratory that was aiming to produce [[synthetic rubber]]. By avoiding [[penal labour|hard labour]] in freezing outdoor temperatures he was able to survive, as well as by stealing materials from the laboratory and trading them for extra food.<ref>See the chapter "Cerium" in Levi's book ''The Periodic Table''</ref> Shortly before the camp was liberated by the [[Red Army]], he fell ill with [[scarlet fever]] and was placed in the camp's sanatorium (camp hospital). On 18 January 1945, the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] hurriedly evacuated the camp as the Red Army approached, forcing all but the gravely ill on a long [[death marches (Holocaust)|death march]] to a site further from the front. The march resulted in the deaths of the vast majority of the remaining prisoners, but Levi's illness spared him that fate.

Although liberated on 27 January 1945, Levi did not reach Turin until 19 October 1945. After spending some time in a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] camp for former concentration camp inmates, he embarked on an arduous journey home in the company of former Italian [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war]] who had been part of the [[Italian Army in Russia]]. The long railway journey home to Turin took him on a circuitous route from Poland, through Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Austria, and Germany{{snd}}an arduous journey described especially in his 1963 work ''[[The Truce]]''{{snd}}noting the millions of displaced people on the roads and trains throughout Europe in that period.