Chain of Correspondence. Primo Levi, the Germanies, Europe

Medal of the President of the Italian Republic

Under the patronage of Regione Piemonte and Città di Torino

An exhibit created and promoted by the Centro Internazionale di Studi Primo Levi di Torino, as part of the project ERC Starting Grant LeviNeT headed by Martina Mengoni

Curated by Domenico Scarpa

For the first time, an entire exhibit is being dedicated to Primo Levi the letter writer.
Chain of Correspondence recounts the vast network of correspondence that Primo Levi maintained with his German interlocutors for more than twenty years: ordinary readers, readers who were also authors, former companions in the Lager, and even some individuals who had been “on the other side” in Auschwitz. The correspondence on display traverses almost half a century of European history and reflects on the memory of extermination, but also on Europe and Germany divided in two. It intertwines the four languages – Italian, French, English, and German – that Levi knew. The letters are accompanied by unpublished images, maps, drawings and more.

Promoted by the Centro Internazionale di Studi Primo Levi and curated by Domenico Scarpa, Chain of Correspondence anticipates and relaunches the results of the LeviNeT project, funded by the European Research Council and coordinated by Martina Mengoni at the University of Ferrara, which for the first time publishes Levi's German correspondence on www.levinet.eu

The exhibition design is curated by Gianfranco Cavaglià and Anna Rita Bertorello; Graphic design is curated by Ars Media.

The exhibit is divided into five sections:

1. Primo Levi. A precocius european gaze
2. Hermann Langbein. A formidable man
3. Heinz Riedt. An anomalous german
4. Chain of correspondence
5. Levi’s readers

The exhibit has been designed to be accessible to the visually impaired, with tactile maps and QR codes that can be used to access the audio content of each section using a mobile device.

To mark the opening of the exhibit, the Centro Internazionale di Studi Primo Levi, in collaboration with tPoste Italiane, has created a special philatelic stamp: on the day of the inauguration and the following day, when the exhibit is open to the public, two officials from Poste Italiane will be present at Palazzo Madama to stamp the philatelic postcards, also created for the occasion, with a stamp chosen on the theme.