Primo Levi and the Torino massacre
Reflections from 1973 on a rewriting of "Se questo è un uomo",
from a conversation between Primo Levi and a student, republished in L'Unità, 26 January 2011.
« […] There is a direct line that starts with the Torino massacres of 1922, with Brandimarte (head of the fascist action squads: he led the killings that in Torino, on 18 December 1922, left 14 anti-fascists dead and the Camera del Lavoro destroyed […], ed.), and ends at Auschwitz. The continuity is plain enough. »
« […] The first fascist massacres are Italian... they are Torinese. Industrial extermination is German. But violence for political ends, in this century, is an Italian invention. Fascism is an Italian patent. From Torino, I mean. The massacre of '22, in short… It was a hunt, a hunt through the streets. »
« […] When I wrote "Se questo è un uomo" I was convinced it was worth documenting certain things because they were over. They are not over now, and we have to talk about them again. »