Primo Levi Chemist, Writer, Holocaust Survivor

Primo Levi (1919-1987) was an Italian Jewish chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor. His classic book â€Å"The Periodic Table† was named the best science book ever written by the Royal Institution of Great Britain. In his first book, a 1947 autobiography titled, â€Å"If This Is a Man,† Levi movingly recounted the year he spent imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration and death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. Fast Facts: Primo Levi Full Name: Primo Michele LeviPen Name: Damiano Malabaila (occasional)Born: July 31, 1919, in Turin, ItalyDied: April 11, 1987, in Turin, ItalyParents: Cesare and Ester LeviWife: Lucia MorpurgoChildren: Renzo and LisaEducation: Degree in Chemistry from the University of Turin, 1941Key Accomplishments: Author of several noted books, poems, and short stories. His book â€Å"The Periodic Table† was named the â€Å"best science book ever† by the Royal Institution of Great Britain.Notable Quotations: â€Å"The aims of life are the best defense against death.† Early Life, Education, and Auschwitz Primo Michele Levi was born on July 31, 1919, in Turin, Italy. His progressive Jewish family was headed by his father, Cesare, a factory worker, and his self-educated mother Ester, an avid reader and pianist. Despite being a social introvert, Levi was dedicated to his education. In 1941, he graduated summa cum laude in chemistry from the University of Turin. Days after his graduation, Italian fascist laws banned Jews from studying in universities. At the height of the Holocaust in 1943, Levi moved to northern Italy to join friends in a resistance group. When fascists infiltrated the group, Levi was arrested and sent to a labor camp near Modena, Italy, and later transferred to Auschwitz, where he worked as a slave laborer for 11 months. After the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz in 1945, Levi returned to Turin. His experiences in Auschwitz and on his 10-month struggle to return to Turin would consume Levi and shape the rest of his life. Primo Levi circa 1950. Mondadori Publishers / Public Domain Chemist in Confinement In earning an advanced degree in chemistry from the University of Turin in mid-1941, Levi had also gained recognition for his additional theses on x-rays and electrostatic energy. However, because his degree certificate bore the remark, â€Å"of Jewish race,† the fascist Italian racial laws prevented him from finding a permanent job.   In December 1941, Levi took a clandestine job in San Vittore, Italy, where, working under a false name, he extracted nickel from mine tailings. Knowing that the nickel would be used by Germany to produce armaments, he left the San Vittore mines in June 1942, taking a job in a Swiss company working on an experimental project extracting anti-diabetic drugs from vegetable matter. While working in Switzerland allowed him to escape the race laws, Levi realized the project was doomed to fail. When Germany occupied northern and central Italy in September 1943 and installed fascist Benito Mussolini as head of the Italian Social Republic, Levi returned to Turin only to find his mother and sister hiding in the hills outside the city. In October 1943, Levi and some of his friends formed a resistance group. In December, Levi and his group were arrested by the fascist militia. When told he would be executed as an Italian partisan, Levi confessed to being a Jew and was sent to the Fossoli Italian Social Republic internment camp near Modena. Though in confinement, Levi was safe as long as Fossoli remained under Italian rather than German control. However, after Germany took over the Fossoli camp in early 1944, Levi was transferred to the concentration and death camp at Auschwitz. Surviving Auschwitz Levi was imprisoned in Auschwitz’s Monowitz prison camp on February 21, 1944, and spent eleven months there before his camp was liberated on January 18, 1945. Of the original 650 Italian Jewish prisoners in the camp, Levi was one of only 20 who survived. According to his personal accounts, Levi survived Auschwitz by using his knowledge of chemistry and ability to speak German to secure a position as an assistant chemist in the camp’s laboratory used to make synthetic rubber, a commodity desperately needed by the failing Nazi war effort. Weeks before the camp was liberated, Levi came down with scarlet fever, and because of his valued position in the laboratory, was treated in the camp’s hospital rather than being executed. As the Soviet Army approached, the Nazi SS forced all but the gravely ill prisoners on a death march to another prison camp still under German control. While most of the remaining prisoners died along the way, the treatment Levi had received while hospitalized helped him survive until the SS surrendered the prisoners to the Soviet Army. After a recovery period in a Soviet hospital camp in Poland, Levi embarked on a difficult, 10-month-long railway journey through Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Austria, and Germany, not reaching his home in Turin until October 19, 1945. His later writings would be peppered with his recollections of the millions of wandering, displaced people he saw on his long journey through the war-ravaged countryside. Primo Levi circa 1960. Public Domain Writing Career (1947 – 1986) In January 1946, Levi met and instantly fell in love with his soon-to-be wife Lucia Morpurgo. In what would become a life-long collaboration, Levi, assisted by Lucia, began writing poetry and stories about his experiences in Auschwitz. In Levi’s first book, â€Å"If This Is a Man,† published in 1947, he vividly recounted the human atrocities he had witnessed during after his imprisonment in Auschwitz. In a 1963 sequel, â€Å"The Truce,† he details his experiences on his long, difficult journey back to his home in Turin after his liberation from Auschwitz. Published in 1975, Levi’s most critically acclaimed and popular book, â€Å"The Periodic Table,† is a collection of 21 chapters or meditations, each named for one of the chemical elements. Each chronologically sequenced chapter is an autobiographical recollection of Levi’s experiences as a Jewish-Italian doctoral-level chemist under the Fascist regime, confinement in Auschwitz, and afterward. Widely considered to be Levis crowning achievement, â€Å"The Periodic Table† was named the â€Å"best science book ever† by the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1962. Death On April 11, 1987, Levi fell from the landing of his third-story apartment in Turin and died shortly thereafter. Although many of his friends and associates argued that the fall had been accidental, the coroner declared Levi’s death to have been a suicide. According to three of his closest biographers, Levi had suffered from depression in his later life, driven primarily by his gruesome memories of Auschwitz. At the time of Levi’s death, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote that â€Å"Primo Levi died at Auschwitz forty years later.† Sources: Olidort, showshana. Holocaust: Primo Levi. My Jewish Learning Center. Geirge Hicgbiwutz, Review of Primo Levi: A Life by Ian Thomson. Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2003.Primo Levi, The Art of Fiction No. 140. The Paris Review (1995).Randerson, James (2006). Levis Memoir Beats Darwin to Win Science Book Title. The Guardian.

Interview On The Process Of Welcoming You And It Is Just A...

Yes. Interviewer: Tell me what it was about the process of welcoming you and integrating you into the bank, what worked for you or what was it that worked well? Paul: Just the fact that they don’t expect you to know everything right away and they treated you like you were new and you are going to learn. It is going to be a process, and you are not going to know everything overnight and it is going to take time. The fact that they understand that, and they don’t get frustrated with you if you do make a mistake here or there or if you don’t understand something. They are just very good about it. Interviewer: Are they encouraging that you will learn it and it is just a process? Paul: Yes, for sure. Every single person is like, you are going to pick it up and all of the sudden one day it will click, and you will get it. Interviewer: Describe the training that you went away for. What was it and where was it and was it about a week? Paul: I have a question mark on that, what training are you referring to? I have been getting general training through the different departments of the bank, but I did not actually, I went to Wisconsin for one day for a tax class. Interviewer: I thought you were away for a week at maybe a graduate seminar when I contacted your CEO. Paul: No. Interviewer: Okay so, it’s really been hands on right there at the bank. Paul: Yes, like I said, I did go to Wisconsin to analyze a business tax returns and that was just a one-day seminar.Show MoreRelatedWelcome Letter808 Words   |  4 PagesSample Welcome Letter from the  Manager [An Informal Sample Welcome  Letter] When you’re  welcoming a new employee  to your organization, a  welcome letter  from the manager can set the tone for the entire relationship. You can make the welcome letter formal or informal but it can go a long way in making the new employee comfortable upon arrival for the first day of work. 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Case Study on Henkel †Avail Free Sample Assignment Solution

Question: 1. Is Henkels approach to strategy execution shaped sufficiently by its mission and values? How does the companys approach to staffing the organization and building organizational capabilities support its strategy? How do you rate CEO Rorsteds initiatives to transfort Henkels unhealthy culture into a high performance culture? 2. What are the key features of Henkels organizational culture? Does this companys culture support good strategy execution? Explain. 3. What business strategy recommendations would you make to Kaspar Rorsted, Henkels CEO? Should the company redouble its efforts to broaden its leadership and cultural diversity? Should the company consider new strategic partnerships or new acquisitions? What other potential strategic options does he need to consider? Answer: 1. Henkels strategy did not fit the values and mission. This was mainly due to two reasons. Firstly, the adhesive industrial business of Henkel did not resonate with the focus of the customers. Secondly, the tagline of Henkel did not portray a competitive culture that CEO Rorsted thought would help (Akremi, Roussel and Tre po, 2001). The CEO Rorsted has realized that organization staffing would help the company to achieve their strategy. To focus on the strategies, the company should have clarity of the values. This would help in handling the strong choices that are needed to change into a challenging competitor (Chunawalla, 2009). The goals of the company are many, but very few of the employees feel the need to achieve it. Foundation for tough decision is to be made using core values. During the years 2004-2008, employees earning was high where as the company suffered loss. The CEO suggested that the company was underperforming and striving for the second position that would no longer do any good. This is a right step on the part of the CEO. 2. With the inclusion of the new management system, Henkel organisation holds bonuses linked to the team performance, financial performance and individual performance. This is a key feature of the company. For group performance, the company sees the two or three key performance indicators. These indicators were ranked in the scale 0% to 200%. The KPI score was averaged to get an overall score. Team performance also followed the same formula where the things too achieve was possible through local or specific targets. The performance of individual was weighted 50% on each of the inputs i.e. the equally weighted two KPIs performance and DRT performance rating. Target bonus was available to each manager according to their job level. To calculate the bonus payout, the individual score was multiplied with the total score (Lawley, 2007). The strategy will be implemented properly only if the culture of the company is supportive. The strategy that the company focuses on is to outperform. The company wants to manage their portfolio actively. The company focus on the high potential region so that it can make certain changes so that the strategies are fully executed. 3. For a company like Henkel that deals in a variety of products must try to divide its investment strategies. The company should focus on diversification and localization of products in the Southern European market. To gain market share, the company must focus in branding of products that are suited typically for Spain and Italy. This will help the company to increase its revenue by 50% and 20% approximately in Spain and Italy respectively. With the changes being incorporated in the organisation, the company has successfully created a winning cultural diversity. Simone has visited many places and interacted with the leaders of the company and from them he got a positive feedback on the visions and ideals. The company should take up the strategy of acquisition as it will help in optimizing the portfolio of the company (Rickertsen and Gunther, 2001). The CEO must focus on the leadership management programme. It is crucial that a big brand as Henkel should possess a good understanding of strong leadership. References: Akremi, A., Roussel, P. and Tre po, G. (2001). CEO compensation strategies. Jouy-en-Josas: Groupe HEC. Chunawalla, S. (2009). Product management. Mumbai: Himalaya Pub. House. Lawley, B. (2007). Expert product management. Cupertino, CA: HappyAbout.info. Rickertsen, R. and Gunther, R. (2001). Buyout. New York: AMACOM.

Saint cecilia Essays - Ancient Roman Women, Saint Cecilia, Cecilia

Saint Cecilia is said to have heard heavenly music inside her heart when she was forced to marry the pagan, Valerian. A wealth of music, art and festivals in honor of St. Cecilia has grown from this little bit of information from her biography. She is the acclaimed patron saint of music, especially church music, as well as that of musicians, composers, instrument makers and poets. The name Cecilia means blind and so, although we don't know if she herself couldn't see, she is also the Catholic patron saint of the blind. It is believed that St. Cecilia was born in the 2nd or 3d century A.D., although the dates of her birth and martyrdom are unknown. A religious romance telling the love story of Saint Cecilia and Valerian appeared in Greece during the 4th century A.D., and there is a biography of St Cecilia dating from the 5th century A.D. She is purported to have been the daughter of a wealthy Roman family, a Christian from birth, who was promised in marriage to a pagan named Valerian. Cecilia, however, had vowed her virginity to God, and wore sackcloth, fasted and prayed in hopes of keeping this promise. Saint Cecilia disclosed her wishes to her husband on their wedding night. She told Valerian that an angel watched over her to guard her purity. He wanted to see the angel, so St. Cecilia sent him to Pope Urban(223-230). Accounts of how and when Valerian saw the angel vary, but one states that he was baptized by the Pope, and, upon his return to Saint Cecilia, they were both given heavenly crowns by an angel. Another version recounts that Tibertius, Valerian's brother, sees the crowns and he too is converted. The two brothers then make it their mission to bury Christian martyrs put to death by the prefect of the city. In turn, they were brought in front of the prefect and sentenced to death by the sword. Cecilia, in the meantime, continued to make many conversions, and prepared to have her home preserved as a church at her death. Finally, she too was arrested and brought before the prefect. He ruled that she should die by suffocation in the baths. Saint Cecilia was locked into the bathhouse and the fires vigorously stoked. She remained there for a day and a night but was still alive when the soldiers opened the doors. She was then ordered beheaded, but the executioner, after striking three times without severing St Cecilia's head, ran away, leaving her badly wounded. St. Cecilia Cicrular Medal The words, "St. Cecilia pray for us," form an arch over their heads. St. Cecilia hung onto life for three days after the mortal blows, preaching all the while. She made many more conversions and people came to soak up her flowing blood with sponges and cloths. There exists in Rome a church in St. Cecilia's honor that dates from about the fifth century. Her relics were believed to have been found by Pope Paschal I in 821 A.D., in the cemetery of St. Celestas. These remains were exhumed in 1599, when Cardinal Paul Emilius Sfondrati rebuilt the church of St. Cecilia, and said to be incorrupt. St. Cecilia's following flourished during the Middle Ages in Europe. Songs were sung in her name, poetry was written, paintings with St. Cecilia as the subject were created, and her feast day, on November 22 was happily celebrated. She continued to be a popular topic for the arts well into the 18th century. Hans Memling, in 1470, painted St. Cecilia playing the organ at the mystical marriage of Catherine of Alexandria. In 1584 she was named patroness of the academy of music founded in Rome. Raphael painted her at Bologna, Rubens at Berlin and Domenichino in Paris. Chaucer commemorates her in his Second Nun's Tale and Handel set John Dryden's "Ode to Saint Ceclia" to music in 1736. Never was so much made of such a tiny bit of pseudo-biographical information. St. Cecilia, said to have heard heavenly music at one moment of her life, became the patroness of all western music. Even the Andrews sisters, in 1941, recorded a song, "The Shrine of St. Cecilia." St. Cecilia Oval Medal Devotional medal with the beloved