Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Dr. Miklós Nyiszli is a non-fiction memoir of a Jewish Hungarian medical doctor who performed “research” on other Jews with the evil Dr. Josef Mengele aka "Angel of Death." This is not an easy book to read, but an important one.
Dr. Miklós Nyiszli, a Jew as well as a medical doctor, was sent to Auschwitz when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944. Dr. Nyiszli — No. A8450– was picked by the monster himself, Dr. Josef Mengele, to perform “scientific research” on the inmates and eventually became Mengele’s personal research pathologist.
Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Dr. Miklós Nyiszli tells the sober first hand account of a doctor who was selected by Dr. Mengele, evil incarnate, to help him perform medical experiments in Auschwitz. Whether it was a blessing to survive the war or the live with the knowledge that you unwittingly helped the biggest criminals the world has ever seen commit genocide is something Dr. Nyiszli struggles with.
My great-aunt, Sarah, was one of the children experimented on by the malevolent Dr. Mengele. She died young, in the mid 70s, when I was a child, but I will always remember how beautiful she was. Later I found out that she asked my parents that I stop visiting her because she didn’t want me to see her dying.
I have read a lot of World War II books, and it still amazes me of the horrors which occur, and even more amazing is the way people reacted. Jews walking to the slaughter and Germans, Austrians, Poles, and more who simply stood by and watched. One of the most interesting parts of the book was the excellent introduction by Bruno Bettelheim and the one by Richard Seaver who attempts to explain this phenomenon which, unfortunately, we see to this day.
Dr. Nyiszli describes the horrifying things he has done and seen. Early in the book he turns a bit to a fantasy claiming that his research was used by the “most qualified medical centers of the Third Reich” in the world. That institution, the Institute for Race, Biological, and Anthropological Investigation was focused on proving racial superiority, something which cannot be proven.
Article comments
1 - Dr Joseph S Maresca
My generation came post World War II. The article attests to important global history of the atrocities committed in Auschwitz and other camps. The totality of these crimes against humankind beg for eternal vigilance. Additional related witnesses to these atrocities are listed below.
" In all, 1.1 million people died during the four and a half years of Auschwitz's existence; one million of them were Jewish men, women and children.
� Only an estimated 11 percent of Jewish children who were alive in 1933 survived
the Holocaust.
� In total 90 percent of the Jewish population in Poland died --some
2.8 million people.
� Other groups who died included Polish political prisoners, Soviet prisoners of war, Romanies ("Gypsies"), people with disabilities, homosexuals and prisoners
of conscience or religious faith " ...
Source
2 - Tim Baber
The trouble with historians is they stick to what they know, or discover and which is likely to be a safe validation bet. The problem I have had is that I approached Mengele from the literature of Monarch Programming, of which accounts would have him as the "father". My supposed clash with a Mr Mengele minded by a younger man armed with a video camera also is deniable....after all Mengele died in 1979 didn't he. I wasted nine years not bothering to pursue my research because Mengele was said to be dead...and my guy was shorter than the records everyone else depends upon. Well, I have been poked in the throat by a grinning chuckling wrinkly old man after a month of intensive research into the subject he was supposed to have been hired by Western intelligence agencies and I know which version of history I prefer.
3 - Robert Keith Koledo
Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Dr. Miklós Nyiszl. It has been 40 years since I read this book. The chilling images seared into my memory. This is not written by a professional writer, but by a medical doctor trying to recall his experience. If this was a novel I would call it dry. I was 18 at the time of my read which took one night, so shocked I read it to my girlfriend the next night beginning to end. I found no need to ever see a horror film since then. This book was loaned to me by a client of my Dad's, a Mrs. K.. Mrs. K was an Auschwitz surviror, a beautiful woman, with a wonderful personality. She never hid her numbered tattoo and on occasion, when I was staring too much, would offer me her arm and ask if I wished to get a better look. I remember how soft her skin was and the odd color of the dye. She would calmly tell me this was the number they gave her when they tried to take away her name. Then one day she handed me this book, told me that if it wasn't for the author, Dr. Nyiszl, she most likely would not have made it out alive. She developed a very high fever and he gave her medicine without Mengele's knowledge. I never asked for her personal details, I know she survived over a year at the camp and was either 13 or 14 at the time. Please read this book, it changed me, I will never forget.