Survival in Auschwitz (If this is a man) Characters

PrisonerPrimo is only 24 years old when he's captured by the Italian Fascist forces. He's been hiding out with a group of rebels in the woods, and is rounded up with a lot of other Jewish prisoners...

Alberto is Primo's best friend and is with him for almost his entire imprisonment in Auschwitz. Levi sums up his character nicely:Alberto entered the Lager with his head high, and lives in here uns...

Steinlauf is another of Primo's friends, an older man of 50. He's Hungarian, had served in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and was even awarded the Iron Cross (a prestigious medal). Early on during Prim...

Charles and ArthurThese two are French political prisoners who share a hut with Primo in Ka-Be toward the end of the book. The pair also have scarlet fever (like Primo), and they join him after the...

Schepschel has had time to learn how to survive because he's been in the camp for four years. He's lost his wife and five children, and now lives his life as "a sack which needs periodic filling" (...

This guy was really successful before being sent to the camp; he was an engineer and ran a chemical factory. He came from the upper classes of society, and even in the camp strives to return to tha...

Elias is an example of extreme situational irony. He thrives in the camp: "he carries six bricks at a time balanced on his head; he knows how to make a spoon from a piece of tin, and a knife from a...

Of all the prisoners in the Lager, Henri is the one bothers Primo the most. This guy is the Poster Child for a master manipulator: he's able to play on people's sympathies to get what he wants and...

He's the Kapo of the Chemical Kommando, and wears a green triangle, showing that he's "a professional delinquent" (10.3). Kapos were the prisoners who were often the most brutal to the Jews. Alex i...

The Head Honchos of the Polymerization DepartmentDoktor Ingenieur Pannwitz The three scientists in the laboratory are men who, under any other circumstances, would rightfully consider Primo one of...

Throughout the book, Primo introduces us to a slew of other characters who come and go with dizzying rapidity. Many of them seem mere blips on Primo's radar. And if this were a work of fiction—a...