It’s BS now as it was BS then, and I’m sure the Doctor knew it was BS when he wrote the book.
Yet, who am I to judge?
As in any memoir of significance and importance, this one also is riddled with personal stories which really drive the tragedy of the Holocaust into the heart. After all, such huge numbers whether they be six million (Jews that were murdered), 12 million (total people which were murdered in the Nazi concentration camps), 22–25 million (deaths of soldiers in World war II) or 55–75 million (deaths of civilians in World War II) are so enormous that they defy logic and are one of the reasons people deny these events ever happened despite the overwhelming number of evidence.
Dr. Nyiszli tells us stories he witnessed. A teenager who survived the horrors of the gas chambers (there is a chilling account of what happened inside), which he brought back from the dead only so she can be marched out and shot half an hour later. The amazing story of the twelfth Sonderkommando, the Jews who worked the crematoria and revolted before they were brutally murdered. The Nazis replenished the Sonderkommando every four months, the first assignment of the new Sonderkommando was to get rid of the bodies of the old ones and await their fate.
The book is a cautionary tale on many levels; it is also an important historical document and an excellent read. It was not easy to get through this book, and I had trepidation about reading it at all. But I’m glad I did and you will be, too.
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.