A Centaur in Auschwitz: Reflections on Primo Levi’s Thinking

In A Centaur in Auschwitz, Massimo Giuliani sheds new light on Primo Levi’s rational, demythologizing approach to suffering and survival. Whether working in narrative or poetic form, Levi grappled with the ambiguities and complexities of innocence and guilt, triumph and loss. Giuliani presents a powerful new means to understand Levi’s thought: employing the neologism of salvaction (conveying salvation through one’s own action ), Giuliani has developed a star of salvaction - a diagram in the shape of a star of David, in which each of the six points leads to a strategy Levi learned for seeking meaning, and thereby salvation, in the misery of Auschwitz.