Lilìt e altri racconti (published in English as Moments of Reprieve) was published by Einaudi in 1981. The book collects short pieces — most previously published in La Stampa — about individual people Levi encountered in Auschwitz: fellow prisoners, guards, civilian workers, and others who, for one reason or another, remained distinct in his memory.
Levi’s purpose is to rescue individuals from the anonymity of mass death. Where If This Is a Man analyzes the camp as a system, Moments of Reprieve focuses on persons: the Hungarian chemist who shared his bread, the Italian bricklayer who taught Levi how to carry loads, the German guard who once spoke a kind word, the Greek prisoner who maintained his dignity through sheer force of will. Each portrait is brief (most are two or three pages) but precise — Levi captures each person through a single characteristic gesture or moment.
The “reprieve” of the title is double: these encounters provided momentary reprieve from despair within the camp, and the act of writing about them provides reprieve from the overwhelming anonymity of the Holocaust’s statistics. Levi insists on the individuality of each person — their name, their origin, their particular quality — against the system that reduced them to numbers. The book is slighter than Levi’s major works but serves an essential function within his oeuvre: demonstrating that even within total dehumanization, individual humanity persisted.
Collecting Moments of Reprieve
First edition (Einaudi, Turin, 1981): As Lilìt e altri racconti. Cloth with dust jacket.
First English edition (Michael Joseph, London, 1986): Selected stories, translated by Ruth Feldman.
Market values:
- Einaudi first (1981): $50–$125
- English first (Michael Joseph, 1986): $25–$60
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Moments of Reprieve? A collection of portraits of individuals Levi encountered in Auschwitz — each a brief, vivid sketch of a person who retained some fragment of humanity in conditions designed to destroy it. The title refers to the small, unexpected moments of kindness, dignity, or connection that interrupted the camp’s relentless degradation. These are among Levi’s most compassionate and psychologically precise writings.
Are Levi first editions collectible? Yes. The original Einaudi Italian editions are prized by collectors, as are the first English translations. If This Is a Man in any early edition is the most valuable item; the original De Silva first edition (1947) in a tiny print run of 2,500 copies is extremely rare.