Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table is a collection of autobiographical short stories, each one structured around an element from the periodic table, hence the title. Published in 1975, the book tells the life story of a young Jew who grows up in fascist Italy, struggling to circumvent racial laws, studies chemistry at the University of Turin, graduates, joins the resistance, survives the Holocaust, and finally pursues a successful career in the decades following the end of the conflict.

The book defies labelling. The most recognisable theme is the author’s passion for scientific knowledge and discovery, with essays ranging from purely imaginative tales to sapid recollections based on his professional life: stories include medallions dedicated to his friends, as well as political or philosophical metaphors.

Cover of the first edition (Milan, Einaudi, 1975)

Others chapters have a more direct connection to Levi’s dramatic life. This is especially true for Cerium, which is based on his time in Auschwitz when he toiled in a chemical lab at the Buna Werke industrial complex. Levi quickly understands that small cylinders of Iron-Cerium alloy can be stolen, then painstakingly turned into lighter flints, and eventually bartered for extra food rations. Cerium contains an eye-witness testimony of aerial bombing in which Primo Levi chooses not to describe the whole bombing sequence, but isolates the air-raid siren which becomes a powerful symbol of horror. The passage should be read in context: a grey, desolate wasteland with imposing industrial plants as backdrop, populated by prisoners who endure shocking hardships and brutal discipline. For vigour, intensity and imaginative language this is probably one of the most potent literary descriptions of aerial warfare, as seen from the perspective of someone who was at the receiving end of it.

Verso le dieci di mattina proruppero le sirene del Fliegeralarm, dell’allarme aereo. Non era una novità, oramai, ma ogni volta che questo avveniva ci sentivamo, noi e tutti, percossi di angoscia fino in fondo alle midolla. Non sembrava un suono terreno, non era una sirena come quelle delle fabbriche, era un suono di enorme volume che, simultaneamente in tutta la zona e ritmicamente, saliva fino ad un acuto spasmodico e ridiscendeva ad un brontolio di tuono. Non doveva essere stato un ritrovato casuale, perché nulla in Germania era casuale, e del resto era troppo conforme allo scopo ed allo sfondo: ho spesso pensato che fosse stato elaborato da un musico malefico, che vi aveva racchiuso furore e pianto, l’urlo del lupo alla luna e il respiro del tifone: così doveva suonare il corno di Astolfo. Provocava il panico, non solo perché preannunciava le bombe, ma anche per il suo intrinseco orrore, quasi il lamento di una bestia ferita grande fino all’orizzonte.
I tedeschi avevano più paura di noi davanti agli attacchi aerei: noi, irrazionalmente, non li temevamo, perché li sapevamo diretti non contro noi, ma contro i nostri nemici. Nel giro di secondi mi trovai solo nel laboratorio, intascai tutto il cerio ed uscii all’aperto per ricongiungermi col mio Kommando: il cielo era già pieno del ronzio dei bombardieri, e ne scendevano, ondeggiando mollemente, volantini gialli che recavano atroci parole di irrisione:

Im Bauch kein Fett,
Acht Uhr ins Bett;
Der Arsch kaum warm,
Fliegeralarm!

A noi non era consentito l’accesso ai rifugi antiaerei: ci raccoglievamo nelle vaste aree non ancora fabbricate, nei dintorni del cantiere. Mentre le bombe cominciavano a cadere, sdraiato sul fango congelato e sull’erba grama tastavo i cilindretti nella tasca, e meditavo sulla stranezza del mio destino, dei nostri destini di foglie sul ramo, e dei destini umani in generale.

The air-raid sirens erupted around 10 o’clock in the morning. It was nothing new at that juncture, but we and the others were stricken by a bone-deep anguish every time. It didn’t sound like a noise from this world; it wasn’t like a factory siren. It was rather a sound of immense loudness which rhythmically rose to a spasmodically shrill tone all across the locality, and then fell down to a thunderous rumble. It wasn’t so by chance, as nothing in Germany happened by chance. After all, it was perfectly fit for purpose and in line with the circumstances. I often thought it was devised by a malevolent musician, who managed to pack into it fury and bereavement, the wolf howling at the moon and the breath of a typhoon. So should have sounded Astolfo’s horn. It induced panic, not only because it was the harbinger of bombs, but also for its intrinsic horror. It was almost the lament of a wounded beast, a beast so big to reach the horizon. Germans feared air raids more than we did: we, irrationally, didn’t. We were aware that they were not aimed at us, but at our enemies.
In a couple of seconds I was alone in the lab. I grabbed all the Cerium and went out with my Kommando, the sky already resounding with the droning sound of bombers. Yellow leaflets were falling down, swinging indolently. They bore horrible, scornful words:

Im Bauch kein Fett
Acht Uhr ins Bett
Der Arsch kaum warm
Fliegeralarm!

No lard in the belly
At eight o’clock in bed
As soon as the butt is warm
Air-raid alarm!

We were not allowed to enter the shelters. We gathered instead in the vast brownfields around the construction yard. When bombs started to drop, I was lying on grass and frozen mud, touching the small cylinders in my pockets. I was meditating on the oddity of my own destiny, on the fact that we were like leaves on a branch, as well as on the destiny of all humans [translation mine].

The passage contains two literary allusions. The horn is a reference to Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, an Italian epic poem appeared in 1516: Astolfo’s horn induces panic and horror.

The words “leaves on a branch” allude at Soldati, a First World War poem written by Giuseppe Ungaretti.

Si sta come
d’autunno
sugli alberi
le foglie

It’s like being
in the autumn
on the trees
the leaves

Autumnal trees are here a symbol of fragility of human live in wartime.

Primo Levi eventually survived the Holocaust and managed to go back home in Turin following a long, circuitous route. In 1987 he fell into the stairwell of his home – the demise was ruled a suicide.

Alessandro Pesaro, Digital Archive Developer