The Reawakening is Primo Levi’s sequel to his memoir of the Holocaust, Survival in
Auschwitz. His story of liberation from the German death camp in January 1945 by the
Soviet Army, tells about his eventful journey home to Italy. He travels through Soviet
Union, Hungary, and Romania in order to get home. Primo Levi’s extensive railway travels
take him through destroyed cities and transit camps. He describes many of the former
prisoners, Russian soldiers, and other people he encounters along the way.
In many ways, his journey or “odyssey” home is very similar to Odysseus’s travels home
to Ithaca in Homers The Odyssey. In both works, the respective main characters are trying
to get home in the middle of a global war. They are wonderers trying to get home after the
war so that they can get back to their lives. Even though both Odysseus and Primo Levi are
trying to get back home and resume their old lives, they will never be the same. They both
carry a significant amount of “emotional baggage.” Not only do they have these emotional
issues, their respective homelands are very much different from when they left. Especially
in the case of Primo Levi, his life in Turin, Italy and the way he lived will never be
recaptured. Post WWII Europe was a very different place than before the war swept across
Europe and destroyed everything in its path.
The men in The Reawakening are robbed of everything they love, of their house, family,
clothes, habits, of everything they possess. They were very much changed by the camps.
When they begin their long travel home, they are extremely discouraged.
Primo Levi runs into many obstacles on his very long journey home. This journey home
shows him many new experiences and struggles. Primo Levi talks about at the ways in
which Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz were dehumanized and how it affected them after
they were liberated from the camp. Surprisingly, some people managed to retain some
sense of who they were, but were still greatly emotionally impacted from who they were
before the war. They retain their identity despite the intention of the Germans.
When Levi and the others first returned to civilized Germany after traveling around for a
while, he discussed his biggest fear of reintegrating into society. He wondered if people
knew about the camps. He feared that no one would listen to his stories and that no one
