Moments of Reprieve is a book of autobiographical character studies/vignettes by Primo Levi

Primo Levi

Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...

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The book features fifteen character studies of people the author met during his time in the Auschwitz concentration camp

Auschwitz concentration camp

Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...

. Some of the vignettes feature characters who have already appeared in If This is a Man

If This Is a Man

If This Is a Man is a work by the Italian writer, Primo Levi, describing his 11 months—from February 21, 1944 until liberation on January 27, 1945—in the German concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland, during the Second World War...

and The Truce

The Truce

The Truce is a book by the Italian author Primo Levi. It describes his experiences returning from the concentration camp at Auschwitz after the Second World War...

, Levi's initial two Holocaust memoirs. Other vignettes feature characters and stories that did not fit into the narratives of the two memoirs, but which Levi felt had merit in their own right.

They are the moments that helped him overcome his circumstances, either physically (through actual salvation from death, or helping him avoid it, e.g. by obtaining extra food) or more spiritually, through human interaction restoring his faith in his fellow man.