About book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account (2007)
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.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.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 so will you.For more reviews and bookish thoughts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com
This was a short and gripping read, and tells a story that must never be forgotten. I am writing this review not to comment on the story itself, but in response to some of the criticisms I have read about the book. Criticism #1: Dr Miklos Nyiszli was at Birkenau rather than Auschwitz, and there are several inconsistencies in the book between Auschwitz and Birkenau. Response: Auschwitz and Birkenau were part of one larger complex collectively called Auschwitz. I believe that perhaps the colloquial references to the name of the camp heard while living there are just simply unclear to those of us who weren't there. I sometimes found the descriptions of the layout of the camp in the book confusing, but I believe they made sense with Dr. Nyiszli's recollection of Auschwitz-Birkenau when he was there. Criticizm #2: The doctor's descriptions seem detached, therefore the book may have been written by someone else. Response: Technically, the TRANSLATION was written by someone else. I think the phrase "lost in translation" may describe the feeling some readers have expressed. My Criticism: I felt throughout the book that Dr Nyiszli probably was responsible for more of the medical "experiments" (atrocities) than he claimed responsibility for in the book, and pointedly left out details for what he was not proud of. Dr. Mengele was a really bad dude, and I don't think the author would have established the level of trust with Mengele that he did without being more menacing himself. That being said, whatever the doctor did certainly saved his life, and shocking readers with more details of gruesome medical experiments would have people shun the rest of the story. I don't think this book was published until several years after the doctor's death, and I would not be surprised if I found out that someone close to the author edited out gruesome parts of the manuscript before publication. If that happened, it may also explain some of the disconnectedness some readers felt about this book.Overall, I think this was a VERY worthwhile read.
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It was very difficult for me to rate this because I did not enjoy it at all, in any way, at any time. However, it was a powerful story that deserves to be told and repeated. It wasn't pleasant, and it wasn't meant to be. It was raw and honest and horrific.If you have a weak stomach, do not read this. I have read and seen many accounts of the Holocaust, in the form of memoirs, biographies, journals, documentaries, and photos. I really thought I had a good grasp of the horror, but this book surprised and horrified me further. In particular, the descriptions of the autopsies on twins, the constant mass killings, and - the worst for me - the story of the 16 year old girl who survived the gas chamber, albeit only briefly.
—Paige
The cover made me slightly leery. It screams sensationalist and I almost didn't read it until I looked it up and found that this book is an actual first-hand account from a Holocaust survivor forced to work as a doctor under the now infamous Mengele. Reading it, in all its unflinching horror, I realized what an important book this is. There are many horrors in this book which would have remained secret if not for the fact that this man survived and wrote them down for all the world to witness. What a gut-wrenching book this is. I couldn't put it down and it's still giving me nightmares, yet I don't regret reading it. I think in the modern age we risk missing out on important lessons simply because our sensibilities are too fragile to consider humankind's darkest moments. We have a lot to learn that is still relevant today about people's capacity for good and evil, people's adherence to rules and authority (even when they're being led to their deaths), and of course how people cope when thrown into extreme situations.It seems there's some controversy over Dr. Nyiszli's actions, especially in the modern age. I think we're not really in a place to judge from our comfortable armchairs in the realms of (relative) sanity and safety. Some reviewers seem to take Dr. Nyiszli's clinical retelling as evidence that he didn't care about his actions, but I think if he had sobbed his heart out on every page, he would have suffered a breakdown like the other doctors and been unable to live to tell the tale. A lot of how mental illness and suffering manifests itself depends on our core personalities to begin with. That said, I kept in mind as I read that this was one man's account, and it's entirely possible that events may have been seen differently through other eyes. Without other surviving witnesses to corroborate most of what is written here, we will never know for certain if any events were downplayed or omitted entirely in order to spare the author the full rage of history's hindsight.Dr. Nyiszli passed away from a heart attack in 1956. If he hadn't written this down, the truth might have died with him, including the story of the young teenage girl, the father and son with physical deformities, and the Sonderkommando's desperate revolution in the face of certain doom. The Nazis wanted to hide the full extent of their crimes. Instead, their hideous vision of a thousand-year Reich is buried beneath the weight of them. May we learn something from history and check our darker impulses before we let pseudoscience and scapegoating become easy answers to our complex social/financial problems in the future.May the victims ever rest in peace.
—Victoria Zagar
How does one rate a book like this? It doesn't tell a story, it's a memoir and an account of witness. It's a telling that needs to be told but it's not a comfortable read. The people in this book, those who can't tell their stories, need to have their story told. But it's not easy (and it shouldn't be). Five stars for the courage to tell the story. Five stars for remembering those who can't tell their story. The author tells his story in an unemotional way. As I read his account I began to understand that when one is surrounded by these atrocities and witnesses them, when one's own life hangs on a whim of another, that one would/could distance oneself from that immediate horror and emotion would slip into one's interior space. One would witness but perhaps not feel on the surface of one's being but somewhere deep inside instead, where its hidden from view. It's a survival mechanism; a way to stay sane. Even after liberation, allowing one's emotions to the surface would be devastating to the battle of trying to live again in some "normal" way. The unemotional aspect of survival & guilt hits home about half way through this book. It's horrifying, really.At times, there seem to be jumps in time and/or thought from one paragraph to another. It sometimes reads a bit disjointedly. Some things may be missing from the telling or perhaps the translation isn't the best. However, the details provided are enough to demonstrate the horrors and terror of living inside the crematorium, knowing that you can't be allowed to live because of what you've been forced to see and do. This story is horrific. I'm glad I read it. I'm glad that people such as Miklos Nylszli had the courage to tell the story of those who can't do so.
—Petra
