Customer Reviews

Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account

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Having just finished this book, I will say that it is a must read. This is a very disturbing look into Auschwitz and the attrocities that took place, under the direction of Mengele. This account, from a Dr. details that number of people massacred and how they were relieved of their lives. This man, for one reason or another, managed to stay alive and recount the life in Auschwitz as no other could. He is detailed in his memories of the place and gives a clear image for the reader to understand. It is one of those books that you don't often find, in which once you start, you simply cannot put it down. Truly one of the best accounts to date, as it has held up under the years.

I have always had an interest in the Holocaust, but until I read this book some fourteen years ago, it had always remained at a distance.

A reputable colleague at work handed me a copy of this book and said `this is worth a read'.

Having begun, I could not put the book down. The book gripped me from start to finish. The story is horrific but, nevertheless, it is a story that we all owe it to ourselves to be familiar with.

The story and the author's experiences were so profound and penetrating that I have spent the last fourteen years studying and reading as much about the Holocaust as I can. I have visited the Concentration Camps at Treblinka, Majdanek, Auschwitz, Birkenau and Plaszov, together with other areas in Poland directly connected with the Jewish Holocaust. I have seen the buildings full of human hair from the Jewish victims, the gas chambers, crematoria and the other hideous instruments of mass murder referred to in this book.

The book by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli will not take you long to finish. The voices of the victims referred to have long since disappeared. Many people today are not even aware of the Holocaust and others deny it's very existence. Books like these, written by people who were actually there, are essential if our this and forthcoming generations are to be made aware of "man's inhumanity to man" and to prevent such a horror from occurring again.

I read this book recently and found it thought provoking and certainly informative. This isn't a classic or great piece of literature. It's a essentially a pretty frank account of the Nazi atrocities as seen through the eyes of a medical professional who worked alongside Dr Mengele in Auschwitz and fought to stay alive. The material is different than the typical camp survivor because the author lived a much different life than the majority of those crammed into barracks.
I found the book worthwhile and I'd read it again. This isn't an all encompassing piece of work about the holocaust, rather a view through the eyes of a survivor who had to watch those around him suffer and perish. I'd recommend it to anyone who already has read a fair bit on the holocaust and wants to see it through a different set of eyes.

Auschwitz, A Doctor's Eyewitness Account, is the horrific story of what life, if one could call it that, was like inside of the crematoriums at Auschwitz as told by an inmate doctor who performed gruesome operations "under the supervision of the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele." Even though this doctor was working under the constant threat of death, and even though we cannot come close to imaging what it was like to have been thrust into this world against ones choice, one cannot help but wonder how he managed to do the things that he did. In my opinion, he certainly did not make himself a sympathetic figure in the same manner as the main subjects of other holocaust books have. However, the strength of this book is the in depth detail it goes into when describing one's horrific existence in the crematoriums and that is why this is a book that must be read.

For years I have read books, watched movies and studied the reasons why so many people would just walk to their own death at the hands of the SS. So many Jews died because of "business as usual". After reading this book, I have found the answer. Perhaps now I can get over my obsession with that question. Bruno Bettelmeim who wrote the forward to this book has brilliantly answerd that question that evades so many of us.

Aushwitz - A Doctor's Eyewitness Account is not for the faint of heart. It is the memoirs of a doctor / prisoner of the infamous Nazi 'Death Camp'. I have personally read (at the time I write this) about a dozen memoirs on the Holocaust. Dr. Nyiszli's experiences cannot even be imagined. I am truly at a loss for words to articulate the feeling in my heart left by this accounting of evil. Under the direct supervision of the infamous 'Doctor' Mengele, Nyiszli performs, without question, some of the most horrific and scientifically useless 'experiments' on human beings. Truly, who among us could ever imagine trying to survive in a Death Camp such as Aushwitz? And yet the disturbing point over all in Nyiszli's book, is the fact that he VOLUNTEERED his services ! I will not judge anyone personally, however, was this author truly a victim or a conspirator with a 'better them than me' attitude? If you have the intellect and stomach for descriptions of horror, then I do acknowledge the importance of this 'Self-Damming' memoir, since it does offer a rare glimpse into the levels of mindset that was the sinister and the sadistic butchers that were the Nazi's...and their conspirators. Perhaps it is a confession of a repentant mind tortured with his actions of the past.

This book provides us with a first eye look at the operations at the infamous Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz. Dr. Miklos Nyislzi volunteered his services as a doctor/pathologist to the notorious "Angel of Death", Dr. Mengele. The experiments that were performed are unbelievable. How Dr. Nyislzi avoided getting killed on numerous occasions is beyond me. The ending to this book is perhaps the most astonishing part of all. A must read.

As someone who has read many first-hand Auschwitz accounts, I found this the best. It is a rare look into the everyday functions of a systematic genocide; finely written to include the most interesting information. Also, it includes a personal look into the personality and brutal workings of Dr. Mengele from a viewpoint that no other account can offer.

I always heard about the death camps, and Auschwitz, but I could never even think of the things that I read about. Truly evil! It was also educational. This book really takes you inside Auschwitz and exposes the utter madness that was the Holocaust!

This book is written from the viewpoint of the pathologist who had to satisfy Mengele's sadistic cravings. While Dr. N did what he had to do to preserve his life, did he facilitate and spur Mengele's urges? This book raises the question of whether it was better to be shot immediately for disobedience to the SS, go immediately into the gas chambers/ovens, or should one do whatever it takes to preserve one's life to the last possible moment, no matter what the suffering. I was particular interested in the young Jews who manned the ovens. Each knew that their life expectancy was only 4 months, yet they still undertook gruesome tasks, not to preserve their life for a chance of escape or to help others, but just to live a few months! What difficult choices these poor men had to make! This book spurred me to read other accounts. I have just started "Children of the Flames". It too is hard to put down.