The memoirs Alicia: My Story and Survival in Auschwitz provide two very different accounts of the same event: the Holocaust. There are very basic and obvious differences between Alicia Jurman and Primo Levi, which are shown in the table below. Although these differences seem minor, they had a major affect on the differences between the events Alicia and Primo faced. Age Gender Country of Origin Concentration Camp v. Hiding
Alicia Jurman 9 yrs - 15 yrs Female Poland Hiding
Primo Levi 24 yrs Male Italy Concentration Camp - Auschwitz

Alicia was only nine years old when Poland was invaded by the Germans. Alicia’s young age during the Holocaust earned her the right to be called a “child hero”. It is possible that her young age added to her determination. She knew she was in constant danger, but it did not seem that she had a full understanding of just how serious that danger was. Primo was also very young, and even described how his young age contributed to his naivety: “I was twenty-four, with little wisdom, no experience and a decided tendency….. to live in an unrealistic world of my own…..I cultivated a moderate and abstract sense of rebellion”. Although Primo discussed his immaturity, it still seemed that he had a better understanding of the gravity of the situation. The gender differences also played a role in the different experiences. As a female, Alicia was more able to go into hiding. Even if Primo had escaped, it was too risky for men to hide. Most men, especially young men of Primo’s age, were either in the army or Jewish. If he had tried to hide by attempting to blend, anyone who encountered could easily realize he was hiding from something. It was possible for Alicia to hide not only because of her gender, but also because she was able to escape the Nazis. Her first escape came after she was captured at a friend’s house and placed on a train to a certain death:
“I saw a man reach up and shake the bars on one of the windows. ‘Hey!’ he cried. ‘This bar is loose. Look!’…..Finally, after much effort, the bar pulled away from its bottom bolt and could be twisted up and away from the window……With a renewed vigor they pounded at the remaining bars until a second one was pried free and could be twisted back. This left an opening large enough for children to escape…..My father’s friend, the doctor, was one of those helping pass the children out of the train window. He reached down for me. ‘Come, Alicia,’ he said. ‘The train is traveling as slowly as it ever will. There is a slope covered with bushes with a stream at the bottom. Remember to roll when you hit the ground. Run and hide until the train leaves; then just follow the railroad tracks back home.’”

Alicia’s second escape came after she had been captured by SS men and Ukrainian police during a liquidation of the Kopechince ghetto:
“We stopped at a large meadow near the forest. A large trench had been dug. There were many Jews at the trench already, some undressed and some still undressing. Then the shooting started…..Some people in front fell in the trench dead, and some still alive. Then there was more pushing from the back and, as I was nearing the pit, I though I heard my name being called. No, I was imagining it! Then I heard it again. ‘Alicia – Alicia Jurman!’ All of a sudden we heard a machine gun fire near us – not directed at us – coming from the side where the Germans were standing. I turned my head to see what was happening and saw Milek holding a machine gun in his hands and shooting at the Germans. ‘Alicia, run! Get out of here! Run!’ Milek was calling as he kept shooting at the Germans.”

If Primo had been able to escape from the train to Auschwitz as Alicia had, it is possible that he could have gone into hiding as well. However, he did not escape, and he described why he was unable to do so:
“It had been by no means easy to flee into the mountains and help set up what…..should have become a partisan band affiliated with the Resistance movement Justice and Liberty. Contacts, arms, money and the experience needed to acquire them were all missing. We lacked capable men, and instead we were swamped by a deluge of outcasts…..” Alicia and Primo were from different countries, and that affected the length of time they were forced to suffer through the Holocaust. Polish Jews came under Nazi control a few years before Italian Jews. Alicia was only nine years old when the Germans attacked Poland September 1, 1939. For six years, until liberation in 1945, she lived in constant terror and fear. Primo was not captured in Italy until Dec. 1943, and did not arrive at Auschwitz until 1944. He spent just under one year in the camp. Their country of origin also affected the anti-Semitism they met before becoming involved in the Holocaust. Alicia’s hometown of Buczacz, Poland (now in Ukraine) was one-third Jewish, resulting in less anti-Semitism than other parts of Poland. However, anti-Semitism was a great presence in Buczacz. Alicia described, “Part of being Jewish in Poland was learning to live with anti-Semitism”. Primo Levi lived a relatively integrated life with Italian gentiles, considering himself as an “Italian citizen of Jewish race”. Before his capture in 1943, he faced little anti-Semitism. The number of languages Alicia and Primo spoke affected their experiences. Alicia spoke many languages: Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, German, Hebrew, and Yiddish. The knowledge of these languages allowed Alicia to blend in with local populations and find work during her time in hiding. She was able to pretend she was a Polish village girl, and then at other times pretend she was a Ukrainian village girl:
“There was a village close by – I would have to find out if it was Polish or Ukrainian. It was not a matter of languages; I spoke both languages fluently. But we feared the Ukrainians very much, whereas I hoped the Poles, who had become the new target of Ukrainian gangs, might have some understanding of our plight.”

Alicia’s knowledge of German helped her stay away from enemies:
“Early one morning, as I was walking alongside a bush-bordered ravine, I heard voices coming from up ahead, from inside the ravine…..My heart nearly stopped beating when I realized that the language I was hearing was not Polish or Ukrainian but sounded like German. I started shaking, and not from the cold. Germans waiting for me? Had they been alerted to my presence by some farmer, perhaps even by those at the farm I had just left?”

Primo spoke only Italian. Upon his arrival in Auschwitz, he and his fellow Italian Jews needed a translator to understand orders from the Germans. Throughout the book, Primo uses German phrases and commands without a translation for the reader. Primo most likely left out the translations to allow the reader to feel the frustration of being unable to understand the German commands. Alicia and Primo also seemed to have different levels of determination. Alicia was more resistant to the horrible treatment, and determined to live through it. Primo described that he was not made to resist, “I know I am not made of the stuff of those who resist, I am too civilized, I still think too much, I use myself up at work”. It is possible, however, that Alicia was more able to resist because she was not in a concentration camp. Alicia and Primo had different coping mechanisms to get them through their situations. Although both coped by giving themselves a purpose in life, they did this in different ways. Alicia’s purpose was to take care of people, even at her young age. She refused to die so she could take care of her mother. She took in families at Wujciu’s house, took care of the children in her orphanage, and helped people to Eretz Israel with the Brecha.
Primo’s purpose was to survive to tell the world his thoughts. He refused to allow the Nazi’s to take away his ability to make a conscious record of the events at Auschwitz. He also used discussions with other Haftlinge as a means to keep using his mind. He might not have realized that this was his purpose because he believed there was no point in thinking in the Lager:
“In the Lager it is useless to think, because events happen for the most part in an unforeseeable manner; and it is harmful, because it keeps alive a sensitivity which is a source of pain, and which some providential natural law dulls when suffering passes a certain limit.”

Despite all these differences, Alicia and Primo shared similarities in their struggle to survive until the next day. Throughout both memoirs, they emphasized the extreme importance of hunger. “But how could one imagine not being hungry? The Lager is hunger; we ourselves are hunger, living hunger,” Primo described. Alicia’s hunger was so severe she would find unconventional ways of getting food:
“Eventually I did find a source of food at the kitchen. The potatoes that we peeled were thrown into a huge kettle, along with meat, to be boiled into a thick soup…..At the end of every meal the huge kettle had to be scrubbed clean.....While cleaning inside, I discovered delicious vegetables on the inside of the rim stuck to the wall of the kettle. I would scoop them up with my fingers and then sit inside eating every bit with great relish.”

To find food, Alicia would also engage in constant hard work. Everyday, while in hiding, Alicia would find work on a farm in hopes she would receive a piece of bread at the end of the day. Primo engaged in constant hard work as well. However, he was forced to work during his days in Auschwitz. Alicia worked in order to survive, and to provide for the people in her care. Alicia and Primo both described experiences with bargaining and trade. The activity was important to survival, but very dangerous.
Primo Levi:
“The market is always very active. Although every exchange (in fact, every form of possession) is explicitly forbidden, and although frequent swoops of Kapos or Blockaslteste sent merchants, customers and the curious periodically flying, nevertheless, the north-east corner of the Lager (significantly the corner furthest from the SS huts) is permanently occupied by a tumultuous throng, in the open during the summer, in a wash-room during the winter, as soon as the squads return from work.”

Alicia Appleman-Jurman:
“We avoided all public places except the marketplace. We went there not to buy, but the sell. My mother took her linens to trade with the farmers – linens that had been handed down from her mother and grandmother. My little brother Herzl, now nine, bought and sold lighter flints. Mama did not allow my older brothers to go to the market for fear they might be arrested by the Ukrainian police and shot…..If caught, you would lose your merchandise, be taken to the police station, and eventually shot. It was a very dangerous way to earn money, but I had to do it.”

Of course, one similarity Alicia and Primo shared was luck. They not only have this in common with each other, but with every other Holocaust survivor. No survivor would have survived without luck. Alicia’s luck came during her two escapes, and the two times she was saved in prison. On her first brush with luck in prison, Alicia described:
“When I awakened, I was no longer in the prison. I was in a bed in a darkened room…..I didn’t recognize the room at all…..Apparently, after I had become unconscious in the prison cell, I had been assumed dead, either by my cellmates or by the German guards. At any rate, my body had been thrown onto a pile of bodies, in the middle of the room, which was then carried outside and left in the snow for burial. Mr. Gold told me that when he picked me up, he thought he heard a moan, and then he realized that my body was warm. The Jewish burial party pretended to bury me and actually put me in the grave. But when the German guards left, they pulled me out, wrapped me in a coat, hid me under the straw of their sleigh, and brought me into the ghetto to Mr. Gold’s home.”

Primo Levi described his experience with luck during the separations upon arrival in Auschwitz:
“…..the simpler method was often adopted of merely opening both doors of the wagon without warning or instructions to the new arrivals. Those who by chance climbed down on one side of the convoy entered the camp; the others went to the gas chamber.”

Although these are two specific examples of luck, Primo and Alicia both experienced luck every second of their lives during the Holocaust. Their time spent in the Holocaust affected the rest of their lives. Alicia and Primo both spent their time after the Holocaust educating the world of the terrible events.
“Ms. Appleman-Jurman presently tours appropriate institutions on invitation in the U.S. Through her speaking engagements and her book, Alicia memorializes the victims of the Holocaust, yet simultaneously, Alicia is able, through her vitality and love, to impart the message of the power and victory of the human spirit when placed against adversity.”

“Making his way back to Milan, he married Lucia and resumed his career as an industrial chemist. In 1977, he retired from his position as manager of a chemical factory in Turin, devoting himself exclusively to writing until his controversial death on April 11, 1987, in the apartment building where he was born and eventually took up residence. Falling to his death from the railing of his third-floor stairwell, the question of whether Levi committed suicide or was the victim of a tragic accident is still open to debate.”