Se non ora, quando?

(If Not Now, When?)

Se non ora, quando? (If Not Now, When?), published by Einaudi in 1982, is Levi's tribute to his Eastern European Jewish brothers and sisters. Written perhaps as an expression of his abiding regret, if not shame, for not knowing more about his own Jewishness, it celebrates the strength, spirit, and resourcefulness of the Jews who fought tenaciously for survival during and immediately after the Holocaust. While raising issues of morality, choice, and the responsibility of one human being for the welfare of another, the interrogatory form of the book's title expresses Levi's frustration at not being able to make sense of the Holocaust. It also signals his deep concern that no one has produced a document that sufficiently describes the effects of the Holocaust on humanity, and perhaps no one ever will.

Levi derives the inspiration for this story partly from reports he garnered after the war about a Yiddish-speaking group of partisans. It comes too from an episode that is told near the end of The Reawakening (La tregua) the book that may be considered this work's direct antecedent since it too recounts the pilgrimage through Central Europe of a group of prisoners, Levi among them, who were liberated from Auschwitz in early 1945. The episode is the one in which a group of young Jews attach a car to the train headed toward Italy, where they board a boat to Israel. Levi states in a note at the end of If Not Now, When? that it was his intention not to reproduce a true story but rather to trace an imaginary itinerary of a group of courageous and earthy men and women who have been hardened, but not humiliated or defeated, by years of repression and suffering. These are the survivors of a people struck at its deepest roots by Nazism, men and women whose existence was little known and whose culture was little understood by Levi and many of his fellow Italian Jews. This partisan group, which Levi clearly conceives as a composite representation of the Jewish plight, endured the last years of the Second World War in the eastern sector of Europe, in territory under constant dispute between the Germans and the Russians.

Written during the same period in which Levi was writing The Drowned and the Saved, If Not Now, When? also appears to be his attempt to extricate himself from an encroaching sense of emptiness that is revealed particularly in a section of The Drowned and the Saved entitled "Stereotypes." In that chapter he attempts to clarify some reasons the Jews did not and could not rebel against their captors. The tenacity of Levi's partisan characters and the driven quality of their acts mirror Levi's own need to come to terms with the ultimate moral failure of a large part of humankind. These are men and women who retained their dignity in the midst of upheaval. They are characters who fulfill Levi's need for rebirth, reintegration, and the recreation of his own identity after it was so largely negated by his experience during the Holocaust. In his theme of return, he incorporates a return to his Jewishness, which has become an integral part of his survival and which enables him and his characters to return to their homeland, Italy. The book is among several challenges Levi has raised to the world to confront the Holocaust, now and forever, fully realizing that complete understanding of such an event is impossible and that the chance of even a limited understanding is fading with time. To those who have questioned the behavior of the Jews during the Holocaust, this tale of collective and individual heroism and resistance is a powerful response. It is a story about bravery and resilience.

Levi admits that the assimilation of the Italian Jews into Italy's cultural, economic, and political environment left him with little knowledge about his fellow Jews of Eastern Europe. Exalting the thoughts and actions of the characters in this book and the ease with which they meld into cohesive units of human survival, he weighs his own discomfort about his "un-Jewishness" and his lack of facility with Yiddish. The thoughts and conversations of his characters continually reflect an interest in what characteristics identify one as Jewish, and Levi also expresses frequent concern about the stereotyping of all races and cultures. In previous works he has detailed his discomfort, if not embarrassment, about his inability to speak Yiddish, a language towards which, considering where he had been exposed to, also caused in him a degree of resentment.This set him apart in the Lager, or prison camp, and invited the distrust of other Jews there. It created disbelief about his background that resulted in his rejection by his fellows as a Jew, and harsher yet, as a man. Vividly and accurately describing the personalities, actions, and accomplishments of his partisan characters, he often touches upon the ability to speak Yiddish as he reconstitutes and affirms his connection with his own Jewishness. By the time he writes this work, he has obviously learned a great deal. As he tells in an interview, "The problem of language ... became uppermost in ... IfNot Now, When?" He concedes difficulty in recreating in written Italian conversations that take place in Polish, Russian, and Yiddish, particularly as he knew neither Polish nor Russian and only a few Yiddish words. This deficiency motivated him to study Yiddish, and he did so in earnest for eight months.' He implies in his later reflections about language a conciliatory change of heart from his original resentment, which he discussed in Survival in Auschwitz, about the debasement that occurred in all the languages spoken in the prison camps and eventually produced a Lager language or, more accurately, Lagerjargon.While emotionally he does not accept the accusation that he cannot be Jewish unless he speaks Yiddish,' he feels a moral commitment to learn it now, specifically for communicating with this writing with his Jewish brothers and sisters everywhere.