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Auschwitz: A Doctor's Story (Women's Life Writings from Around the World)

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Lucie Adelsberger's memoir of surviving Auschwitz, opens with a description of life in Berlin in 1938. "It began with only a few so called 'trifles,' " she says, citing three incidents which leapt out of the maelstrom of edicts and indignities to confront her with the relentless cruelty of the regime. The first of these limited Jews to public benches marked for them, thereby denying the elderly, many already displaced from their homes, the solace of parks. The second occurred when her elderly mother smiled at a functionary who processed her emigration papers. The official screamed at her mother for her effrontery.
"That's when I realized that these people were beyond the reach of human kindness," says Adelsberger. The third was the denial, after months of wrangling, of her mother's exit visa by the host country. Adelsberger realized finally that "the outside world didn't want to get involved."

Adelsberger missed her last chance to flee when her mother fell sick. As round-ups of Jews accelerated she found herself praying her mother would die before the SS came for her. Those prayers were answered but her own ordeal surpassed her worst imaginings.

In unadorned prose Adelsberger recounts life and the varieties of death at Auschwitz. Her voice is gentle, her eye sharp and compassionate, quick to note small ironies as well as gratuitous kindness and cruelty.

As a doctor, Adelsberger was assigned to the gypsy camp where an epidemic of typhus was raging. There were no medicines and hundreds died daily in their own filth. Why the camp commanders bothered with a hospital at all is a mystery which can be inadequately answered only by the Nazi passion for order.

Meticulous records were kept of everyone. One of the camp's most grueling rituals was the daily roll call. With 25 to 35,000 inmates in the women's camp alone, with the camp's policy of moving inmates from one section to another without notice, and with hundreds dying enroute to forced labor or hidden in a corner of their block, an exact roll call was difficult to achieve. Twice a day, before dawn and after work, inmates stood for roll call. This encompassed everyone except the dead and lasted one to two hours  unless the tally did not match. "A roll call that lasted a day and a night without interruption was nothing unusual."

Roll call, the unexplained withholding of food from already starving people, forced labor, these were routine. Then there were the days that stood out. Sunday in the gypsy camp when gymnasts and musicians put on a show (the Gypsies were allowed to keep their possessions) and an audience of 16,000 sang and danced to music which ended abruptly with an order for "block confinement." After hours of waiting  and the Gypsies know what they're waiting for  the SS appear, calling out names and numbers. That night 2,500 Czech Gypsies were sent to the gas chambers.

Adelsberger also tells of strategies for survival, although she says no one expected to leave the camp alive. But certain work details  the kitchen, the bathhouse where prisoners were stripped of their last possessions, the band, were coveted. Barter and communication systems were devised despite the dangers of detection.

But the vast majority worked in the mills or munitions factories or the potato bunker. Or they dug graves. The worst was reserved for young, healthy Jewish men. Totally isolated from the rest of the camp, they worked in the crematorium. After two or three months they too were gassed. "Sometime while at work, one never knew when, the valves of the gas chamber would close, the gas would be turned on, and  a new Sonderkommando would replace the old."

A heart-rending memoir, yes, but it speaks as much for the beauties and strength of the human heart as for the incomprehensible monstrousness of the experience.

The horrors of the holocaust and the strength survivors had to conjure every second to endure, is beautifully captured by Lucie Adelsberger. Her documentation of the events leading up to Jewish deportation is artful in its simplicity, as each action taken by the Nazis builds upon the last with fatal consequences. This amazing book then takes the reader within the walls of Auschwitz and in exquisite detail invokes the memories of those who were lost as well as those who survived with unflinching honesty. This account documents the strength of the human spirit, and is one that should not be missed.

A well presented, very matter-of-fact but easy to read personal account from one victim of this Nazi prison camp. As a Doctor, Adelsberger obviously saw things and perceived attitudes which many other writers may have missed. There are footnotes giving cross-references to other historical records from this period in history (1930s to 1945). This is an excellent resource for anyone interested in factual study on the Holocaust.

"Auschwitz: A Doctor's Story" by Dr Lucie Adelsberger should be essential reading on the Holocaust. It is a unique testament of one female prisoner's experiences in the hell that was Auschwitz-Birkenau during WW II. The book is significant for a number of reasons, primarily because it provides the female prisoner's point of view on Auschwitz, which isn't very common [the other female memoirs of Auschwitz-Birkenau that I'm familiar with are Olga Lengyel's "Five Chimneys", Liana Millu's "Smoke Over Birkenau" and Rena Kornreich's "Rena's Promise"]. Another significance of this work is that it also provides rare insights into the Gypsy camp in Auschwitz and the lives of it's occupants, something that is hard to come by. Dr Adelsberger is able to tell a bit of the Gypsies' story, as tragic it may be, as this is where she was initially sent upon her arrival from Germany sometime after being deported in 1943.

Dr Adelsberger's observations of camp life are very matter-of-fact, yet each passage is so human - the reader is able to feel her feelings of despair, fear and hope amidst the horror of Birkenau, which is where she spent most of her incarceration.

The chapters are relatively brief but very effective in conveying the horrors of the concentration/extermination camp. The Gypsies' struck me as proud people who were vibrant and active, putting up shows for other prisoners and who were very street smart, yet were doomed to a tragic fate. Yet, even in facing certain death, they were adamant and fierce till the end - as even the children kicked and screamed as they were led to the gas, refusing to go silently. This truly enlightened me on the Gypsies' experiences in Auschwitz, as brief as it was.

The experiences of the female prisoners were well-depicted - I thought it was significant that many women prisoners in Auschwitz formed 'families' to support each other through their travails. Even Adelsberger herself had a similar 'family' - comprising a 15 year-old camp 'mother' and a teenage camp 'grandmother'. They looked out for each other and provided physical and moral support, a necessity in such a hellish camp as was Auschwitz-Birkenau. This testimony is supported by other historical evidence which I've read that mentions how those with no such support ended up becoming 'musselmann', living corpses who wasted away and died.

Every Holocaust memoir I've read has touched me in different ways whilst enlightening me as to different aspects of each survivor's experiences - and "Auschwitz: A Doctor's Story" is not only a touching read, but an insightful one as well. This is an essential book that should be on the reading list of anyone with an interest in the subject.

I loved this book, and I couldn't put it down. Great read about the Holocaust. Very chilling to see how the women in the death camps, especially Auschwitz were treated. The font is for 6th Graders, but I feel that it souldn't be read, for the graphic nature, until high school.

A very good read.

This was one of the most beautifully written memoirs of the Holocaust I've ever read. It is a very short book but Lucie Adelsberger manages to give the reader the feelings of horror of the times before in Berlin and during her stay in Auchwitz. She writes in beautiful prose giving me a feel for how people felt early on more than from anything I have previously read. It is poignant as she describes her conflict as a loving daughter and her duties as a physician. She does not go on and on and elaborate but says it all suscinctly. Her chapter on fear said it more clearly than anything I've read before; I felt the fear in her very descriptive prose. It is an excellent read on the Holocaust.

Excellant, a well written account of her experiences. She was one of the lucky ones.

I really enjoyed this book and recommand it to anyone interested in reading about Auschwitz during the war.