Liana Millu’s Concentration Camp Novel

Abstract

Liana Millu (1914-2005) was an Italian Jew deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. She survived and became a writer. This article is focused on analyzing her major work: Il fumo di Birkenau (1947). In contrast to the trend of other memoirs of the same period, Millu knowingly wrote a novel characterised by an evident literary vocation. The writer’s autobiographical events are always kept in the background as well as the narration. We find instead six women’s stories developing a significant dramatic intensity. The article explores poetics, genesis and temporal structure of the novel but also some developments of relevant topics such as the process of dehumanisation, the particular status of women in camps and a legend about motherhood, both in Millu’s text and in another Italian memoir from Birkenau.