Italy - Primo Levi

Hydrogen

Italy: Primo Levi

Levi, a 23-year old chemist, was arrested in December 1943 and transported to Auschwitz in February 1944. There he remained until the camp was liberated on 27 January 1945. He arrived back home in Turin in October, unrecognisable to the concierge who had seen him only a couple of years earlier.

Story

Hydrogen from Primo Levi’s collection The Periodic Table https://archive.org/download/ThePeriodicTable-PrimoLevi/periodic-primo.pdf

Themes

• Epiphany
  
• Curiosity, the Desire to Know, and Perseverance
  
• Rule Breaking
  
• “Other Worldliness”
  
• Metaphors: Describing an idea using vocabulary from another domain
• TRIZ, aka Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskhikh Zadatch

Additional Material

Notes and References

1. The last story in The Periodic Table, titled Carbon is also a fantastic metaphoric journey of a single Carbon atom. Read it!! It has been described as the most accessible piece of science writing!

2. More Holocaust Reading:

   • Tadeuscz Borowski’s “Postal Indiscretions” is a series of letters written from a concentration camp.
     
   • His short story, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen is also a harrowing read. Weblink to PDF
     
   • The World of Tadeuscz Borowski’s Auschwitz https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2021/09/12/the-world-of-tadeusz-borowskis-auschwitz/

3. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/22/primo-levi-auschwitz-if-this-is-a-man-memoir-70-years

4. A Student Reflection on Primo Levi’s Hydrogen: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-325-small-wonders-staying-alive-spring-2007/assignments/periodic2.pdf

5. Extract from “The key to the highest truths”: Primo Levi and the beauty of chemistry

Nonetheless, reading Levi’s writing over lockdown, I was reminded that he also witnessed chemistry’s most detestable side at Auschwitz, as part of the Chemical Kommando transporting magnesium chloride, and at the IG-Farben laboratory. Despite this, Levi never lost sight of the beauty of chemistry: for me, found in the sublimation of brilliant emerald-green crystals of nickelocene; in the jagged, imperfect trace of an action potential on the electromyograph; in the faint rainbow of lines emitted by potassium under a sodium discharge lamp. If Levi were to observe us in these practical classes, complete with our rash deductions, amateurish mistakes and shattered glassware, I like to think he would be pleased.

Song for the Story !!

Song: Flying Sorcery Artiste: Al Stewart

Alastair(“Al”) Ian Stewart (born 5 September 1945) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician who rose to prominence as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a unique style of combining folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of characters and events from history.

Read “Flying Sorcery” by Al Stewart on Genius

Writing Prompts

1. My Genius Friend
2. What I learnt by Breaking Rules
3. Describing a Scientific Concept using everyday objects