Carlo Greppi's A Man of Few Words

Award-winning Italian historian Carlo Greppi detailed his book, A Man of Few Words, during an enticing conversation with Dr Darren Fa at the Literary Festival.

The story is about an Italian war hero and Primo Levi, an imprisoned Italian chemist in Auschwitz.

Lorenzo Perrone was a young humble bricklayer who risked his life many times over a period of six months smuggling food, clothing and hope into the death camp.

Lorenzo Perrone is considered an Italian hero, particularly in his hometown of Civetta. There he is often referred to as a saint for his selfless actions and kindness during WW2.

Lorenzo’s bravery was in helping Jewish and Italian partisans and that earned him respect and admiration all over Italy. He befriended Primo Levi and supported him unconditionally, giving him the strength and courage to survive Auschwitz until liberation in 1944.

Mr Greppi’s book is a meticulously researched biography on Perrone and it was fascinating to hear the author talk passionately about his painstaking fact-checking research from a wide variety of sources.

Dr Fa was clearly impressed and had prepared a well-documented set of questions designed to elicit answers that I suppose we all wanted to hear.

How was life in Auschwitz? How did the bricklayer outwit the Germans over six months without being caught?

The answers were not forthcoming in the way that I expected, indeed, the questions were raised in the Q&A at the end.

The methodology of Perrone’s heroism was not explained although his many virtues were and rightly so.

When an award-winning historian sets about discovering the life of a man of few words, we learn that there were 4300 pages written about the chemist Primo Levi and only 15 pages about Lorenzo.

Now that is a challenge that fascinates the historian.

Primo never asked for help, but the young Italian told him not to worry, that he would take care of him and he did.

Primo Levi survived the war, but the weight of the heroism may have been too much for Lorenzo, he became isolated and refused to work.

He drank, presumably to forget. He didn’t care about himself and that is why he did good - selflessly caring about others at tremendous personal risk.

Mr Greppi said that the message which comes back to us is “why don’t we all help when we can?”