Auschwitz Book Summary

In 'Auschwitz', Miklos Nyiszli, a Jewish physician, reveals the harrowing realities of life and death within the infamous concentration camp. He serves as the personal doctor to Dr. Mengele, witnessing unspeakable horrors while grappling with his own moral dilemmas. Nyiszli's narrative is not just a chronicle of survival but also a profound exploration of the human capacity for cruelty and compassion. Emphasizing the struggle for dignity amidst dehumanization, the book unveils shocking insights into medical ethics during the Holocaust. This chilling firsthand account challenges readers to confront the darkest aspects of humanity and reflect on the power of remembrance.

By Miklos Nyiszli

Published: 2011

"In the midst of darkness, where hope seemed lost, the will to survive and the quest for humanity became the only light to guide us through the horrors of Auschwitz."

Book Review of Auschwitz

A New York Times bestseller. The memoir of a Jewish doctor forced to assist Josef Mengele. Shocking and important. When the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, they sent virtually the entire Jewish population to Auschwitz, the concentration camp whose horrors over the years have become synonymous with the Holocaust. A Jew and a medical doctor, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli was spared from death for a grimmer fate: to perform “scientific research” on his fellow inmates under the supervision of the infamous “Angel of Death”: Dr. Josef Mengele. Nyiszli was named Mengele’s personal research pathologist. During his work, he was eyewitness and involuntary participant, chief physician of the Auschwitz crematoriums, and drafted number affidavits of dissection and forensic finding (signed with his own tattoo number). Miraculously, he survived to give this terrifying and sobering account. Written in 1946, soon after the end of World War II and the liberation of the concentration cames, Nyiszli’s work was one of the first books to tell the horrors of Auschwitz. It has been numerous languages and has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. “An honest book, and an important one. It tells of events which though gruesome, need to be sold and retold until their meaning for our times is accepted.”—Bruno Bettelheim, from his Introduction

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In the midst of darkness, where hope seemed lost, the will to survive and the quest for humanity became the only light to guide us through the horrors of Auschwitz.

Auschwitz

By Miklos Nyiszli