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Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account (Rated: GC)
Product Type: BookReviewer: Jayne  Review Rated: 18+ | Amazon's Price: $ 15.83
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Further Comments... | ||
I had the kindle copy, but WdC won't place it so I entered it as the paperback. 4.5 stars. Really, how do you even rate a book like this? It's the personal account of a Dr. Nyiszli, a Jewish doctor who unwittingly ended up working closely with the horrific Dr. Mengele, dissecting the bodies of his fellow prisoners, often children, in the name of Mengele's "science" of finding the superior race. In addition to being Mengele's personal pathologist, he was responsible for providing medical to a specific group of prisoners - those who ran the crematorium - as well as providing medical care to the occasional SS member. I have read several criticisms of this book and I will do my best to address them: 1. It's clinical and detached. Yes and yes. My rebuttal to this would be three-fold. First, he's a clinician and freely admits he is writing as a doctor and not an author. In that regard, it does have a sort of clinical-assessment detached feel to it, though I would hardly say that it was "cold". Second, he wrote this very shortly after the war ended. I would imagine he was experiencing a significant amount of PTSD following his release, and that could play a factor in the way he talks about his experiences. Third, how do you write a book like this and not in some way detach yourself from it? I would challenge the reader to consider how they would tell this story. If I were to take any approach other than an "out-of-body" approach, I would go mad. Nyiszli does have inner moments as well, but you may find, like I did, that they are highly tempered and very quickly slip back in to the previous approach. If you've ever met anyone who, despite their appearance and the words coming out of their mouths, is entirely broken, you will recognize the way this is written. 2. He seemed privileged and he showed little remorse. I'm not sure if this stems from the misunderstanding of the 'detachment' pointed out above, or if the subtleties of some of the passages were missed. He was privileged insofar as his place in the camp. He makes that very clear from the very beginning when he first meets the Sonderkommando (crematorium workers). He recognizes that he, and they, are enjoying things that others are not: food, cigarettes, normal clothing - and he recognizes the truth about where it comes from. He sleeps in a proper bed, with proper bedding. He takes a nap at one point. The Sonderkommando (and the Doc) also had a 'life span' of 4 months under the SS 'rules' (the doc is exempted several times). During those months, they try to smuggle out what they can to other prisoners. He uses his position to try to save someone, but his plea is ignored. He patches up the guards who beat him the day prior. He attempts to partake in a resistance, but doesn't tell everyone (which some view as elitist, but which I view as 'the fewer who know, the better'. At no point does he state he intends to leave the man in question behind). So we have this group of men, forced to do indescribable things to their fellow prisoners, and who know they are going to die in about 4 months time and a new group is going to come in (against their will) and do the same things to them. And we sit behind our computer screens expecting that they would have done, what, exactly? Asked for a transfer? Just said "no"? It's not like there was a shortage of people to take their place (save for the doctor - more on that later). I do not own a horse high enough to say what I would have done in that situation, nor do I have a big enough gavel to pass judgment on the people who were placed in a position such as this. He shows remorse. It may not be the epic movie-breakdown, complete with sweepingly sad music, but life doesn't work like that. He is well aware and knows he will live with this forever. 3. It feels sanitized. On this point, I agree. Given what we know about Mengele from other sources, and given the amount of freedom Nyisli was allowed (view spoiler), I find it difficult to believe that the horrors discussed in the book were the full picture of what the Doc witnessed or was forced to partake in. Whether it was self-censure for personal or public reasons, or whether it was sanitized by someone else for those very same reasons, I don't know. I do know that it does feel like there was always something just below the surface that desperately wanted to come out, and that for him to become as 'indispensable' as he came to be in a world where his usefulness should have run its course many times over is at odds with how it played out. But, I wasn't there and it is not my story. What he has given us is horrid enough and it is unfair that we demand a more harrowing tale from him. 4. He humanized Mengele and his "science". Well, no. He knew Mengele's science was utter BS. Nyiszli walked a fine line between Mengele's horror-show and quieter moments, and whether we like it or not, Mengele was, in fact, human. He was a terrible human of the worst kind, but human nonetheless, so I don't know why people think he would not have human-sounding moments. So for Nyiszli to have a conversation with him seems at odds with other things we know about Mengele, but it's important to note that Nyiszli gives a very clear portrait of the strange darkness of Mengele's demeanor. Everyone feared him. Even the SS. It is made abundantly clear the man was as close to a monster as a human can get. This doesn't mean the man doesn't have conversations that sound something other that evil or automaton. And yes, on at least one occasion, Nyiszli discovers something that Mengele really likes, and carefully preserves it for him. A few things to remember: Nyiszli was acutely aware of Mengele's ability to find things out. Nyiszli wanted to stay alive. The items in question where already in front of him; to discard them and risk being found out was not worth it; and to present them in such a manner was the closest you could come to perhaps 'earning' yourself a few more days. The description can be read as somewhat empathetic toward Mengele. It could be that Nyiszli was simply so intertwined in the situation that it appeared to be the normal thing to do at the moment. It could be that Nyiszli knew it would earn him favour, however slight. It could be that Mengele would be fascinated with shiny things and would leave Nyisli alone for a while. I don't think it was empathy. I think it was a function of all the factors of the situation he was in. And in my opinion, Mengele was not alone in his monstrosity. Mussfeld was at least as bad, and in many ways, was worse. I cannot, and I likely will not, ever be able to wrap my head around the amount of human evil that was amassed during this time period. Which brings me to: 5. Bettelheim's Forward I understand that Bettelheim's forward was intended to create a desire to understand human psyche, but it enraged me to continually read about "why the Jews didn't just rise up?", going so far as to say that unique feature is not the death camps, but that the Jews so readily went. The forward alone would be enough to put people off reading this book, and that is unfortunate because it should be read. 1/3 of the country wants to kill you, and 1/3 is standing around watching them do it (or risk death themselves). It's not like this entire event happened overnight; it's not as though they all had somewhere else to go. With the gift of hindsight, it's an easy and callous question to ask. On the other hand, with the gift of further hindsight, it's callous to ask why that question was asked in the first place. The events happened in the 40's; the forward was written in the 60's; and here I am looking at it in 2018. In my view, it smacks of victim-blaming; holding innocent, non-violent people responsible for their actions of their attackers. No, the question isn't why they didn't leave, nor why they did not 'rise up'. The question is "how did a regime create this type of normalized structure, how do we more effectively disrupt it, and how do we protect any other group targeted in this way?" The introduction by Richard Seaver is much better. Both were included in my Kindle copy. Overall, this was a tough read. It's not like I didn't know what was going to play out (save for the book's ending), but that didn't make it any easier, and my heart hurts. As Seaver mentions in his introduction, it's one thing to be discussing an impersonalized group removed from ourselves. It's a much different thing to experience one point of view from within that group. It removes the space and distance between "Then" and "now", and it gives an immediacy to the situation, where the weight of the never-ending death factory, the rentlentless campaign of fear, torture and death, the waiting but not wanting to die, comes crashing down on your shoulders. I can only hope that Nyiszli (and any surviving Sonderkommandos, if there were any) were able to forgive themselves and find purpose in their survival by bringing the full scope of the inner workings to the world. | ||
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Created Dec 06, 2018 at 9:36pm •
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