Auschwitz A Doctor's Eyewitness Summary

In Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account, to say that Auschwitz is an interesting read would be a gross understatement. Auschwitz is a historical document, a memoir but, most importantly an insider’s tale of the horrors that the captives of one of the most dreadful concentration camps in the history of mankind. Auschwitz, is about a Jewish doctors, Dr. Nyiszli, experience as an assistant for a Nazi, Dr. Mengele. Dr. Nyiszli arrived at Auschwitz concentration camp with his family unsure if he would survive the horrific camp. This memoir chronicles the Auschwitz experience, and the German retreat, ending a year later in Melk, Austria when the Germans surrendered their position there and Nyiszli obtained his freedom. The author describes in almost clinical detail and with alternating detachment and despair what transpired in the

crematoria and the dissecting room during his tenure as chief pathologist working directly under Dr.

Josef Mengele. Dr. Nyiszli writes he was driven to survive so that he would be able to inform the world of what had taken place in Auschwitz.
Dr. Nyiszli was a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp survivor which was located in Poland. Reading his story provided me and the rest of the world with a description of the horrors that took place in the concentration camp in 1944. Being separated from his wife and daughter, Dr. Nyiszli volunteered to work under the supervision of the head doctor at the concentration camp which was Josef Mengele. Being a Jew and a medical doctor, he was spared death to do worst then a death, to perform scientific research on his fellow inmates with the infamous “Angel of Death”- Dr. Josef Mengele. Dr. Nyiszli was named Mengele’s personal research pathologist. In that capacity he also served as physician to the Sonderkommando, the Jewish prisoners who worked exclusively in the crematoriums and were routinely executed after four months. There were several thoughts that ran my mind after reading Dr.

Nyiszli’s account and one was the propensity of the human mind to deny what is plainly before them. This was probably the one thought that emerged my mind and that I found the most disturbing. The way many of those within the camps, both prisoner and captor alike, accepted the normalcy of the situation. This was the plight in which they were made to make the best of it in whatever way they could. Dr. Nyiszli writes he was driven to survive so that he would inform the rest of the world of what had taken place in Auschwitz. He knew if he survived he would be able to give a firsthand account of what happened since he was very close with all the operations that took place under Dr. Mengele, “The Angle of Death.” But for most of them, the hope was far from gone. As I read the book, this really disturbed me. How could they make sense of this? In the end, they didn’t try to and just gave up. Over 6 million people lost their lives because they had lost hope of survival. The prisoners and the guards just took each day as the only day they needed to worry about except Dr. Nyiszil. He had a sense of purpose to get his experience across the world so that people can have a better understanding of what had happened behind the closed doors in Auschwitz. It is difficult for me as I write this in the safety of my home, on my laptop to understand how life could turned out to be so descend into that kind of sinister routine.