Dr. Gisella Perl's 'I Was A Doctor In Auschwitz'

In “I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz” was published in 1948 by Dr. Gisella Perl as an autobiography of her experiences as a Hungarian Jewish Gynecologist in Nazi concentration camps. Perl begins the novel before Nazi perversity eradicates her village and she recounts her experiences in the death camps. Perl divides the novel into short stories of all the people she encounters in her ultimate quest for survival. Perl devotes her memoir in recognition to the inhumane events that took place. Perl applies a disturbing amount of imagery in every detail she accounts, “The children, little blond or dark-haired children coming from every part of Europe, did not go with their mothers into the gas chambers…(they) were drenched with some inflammable material
and burned alive.” (28) Perl starts every sentence with a pleasing image in this case of little innocent blond haired children and in a few simple words changes the whole tone of the sentence. Perl uses this style to essential capture the reader with a pleasant image only to abruptly destroy the thought with the dark reality. vividly depicts the atrocity of the Nazi’s thirst for death. The purpose of the novel is to serve as a monument to commemorate the tragic events throughout the years 1940-1945 due to Nazi sadism. The main idea of Perl’s novel is to give terrifying insight into the true depths of human bestiality, in hopes that it will prevent the persecution of innocent people in the future. The two main ideas instilled in the novel are the innate qualities people possess to unite together for survival and the stark contrast of Dr. Gisella Perl and Dr. Josef Mengele.
Dr. Gisella Perl gives countless accounts of the perversity and depravity that contributed to the inhumanity of Nazi rule. The enjoyment that the perpetrators take in the torture and genocide of six million innocent people makes every human ashamed for belonging to the same race.
Perl saves countless lives throughout the novel. One of the most serious crimes for a woman to commit in Auschwitz was to give birth to a child. she describes the treatment of pregnant women, They were surrounded by a group of SS men and women, who amused themselves by giving these helpless creatures a taste of hell, after which death was a welcome friend… when they collapsed, they were thrown into the crematory - alive.” Since Perl was a gynecologist previous to her life at Auschwitz she had all the knowledge she needed to save lives. The sense of moral obligation for the woman to bond together is epitomized in this chapter. When a woman’s delivery date would draw near, Perl would sneak out of the barracks at night risking her life while the other prisoners concealed her disappearance and served as lookouts while Perl performed the abortion with her bare hands. Perl estimated she saved performed hundreds of abortions with nothing but her bare hands at night while the unsuspecting SS guards patrolled; she saved hundreds of women’s lives.
The main idea of the novel was the theme of life. As ridiculous as that seems since death is abundant throughout the novel, the novel centers around life. Perl serves as the heart of the novel, she is the angel of life, whereas Dr. Josef Mengele is the angel of death. She is constantly pit against him in her struggle for life. He promotes her as the head doctor giving her a makeshift hospital and supplies only to take it all away the next day as a torment to her faith. Perl offers asylum for the crippled and the weak in Auschwitz saving them from Mengele. Perl gives life in many ways for example she mends bones, performs abortions to save mothers, and other illnesses such as tuberculosis which are an immediate death sentence in the eyes of Mengele. She gives life by taking away Mengele’s opportunity to kill.
Perl’s attitude toward her experiences is not one of hatred, but one of empathy. Perl says, “The dead, who do not ask you to avenge them but only to remember them and to be watchful that no more innocent victims of German inhumanity ever swell in their ranks…” (5) This reflects Perl’s inner thoughts, she does not want revenge for her suffering, she never again wants to see innocent people become a pawn to perversity while everyone else just watches and let the atrocities happen. Perl structures almost every chapter’s story with an example of perversity. She portrays the Nazi’s indecency with cynicism. “The others, those who were taken left, were taken to the crematory to die a horrible death...They were loaded into Red Cross trucks, in a weird mockery of all human decency.” (27) She also utilizes figurative language in a dark way she compares the nightmares of Auschwitz to equally disturbing images through the use of similes and personification. “Like big, black clouds, the smoke of the crematorium hung over the camp. Sharp, red tongues of flame behind the sky, and the air was full of the nauseating smell of burning flesh.”(27) Perl uses something neutral if not pleasant such as clouds, and applies a dreadful effect to the comparison in order to accurately depict the reality. She uses a disturbing amount of detail which applies a horrific tone to her writing creating a unique (somewhat disgusting style). “Surrounded by mountainous heaps of rotting corpses and ditches full of bodies…(women) lying in the cages below, diarrhea mixed with blood, pus, and urine formed a slimy, fetid mud on the floor of the barracks.” (170-171)
The most memorable element of the novel was Perl’s ability to set to set the reader up with a pleasant beginning to a story to capture their attention, then in a few short pages destroy the reader’s hopes of closure with an abrupt vivid account of the reality that ensued.
Her style of writing as disturbing as it leaves the reader is an appropriate one for the topic she must explain. After reading other Holocaust novels such as “Night” by Elie Wiesel the reader is informed of the sadistic imagination that led to such torture; however, this novel to thoroughly accounts what hell was like from a woman’s standpoint. The subject is often one overlooked, sure everyone knows of the crematories and gas chambers but what about the topic of abortions? This novel offers insight to subjects that normally are not the first to arise in holocaust books. This novel offers the unique stand point of the Holocaust from a woman’s point of view one who endured the torture and survived. Gisella Perl was a mother who had to watch thousands of other mothers watch their children die, a horror unimaginable only to be captured through Gisella Perl. I would recommend this novel possible to be taught in conjunction with other Holocaust literature that is required because of the style Perl uses to portray her unique view point of a horrific
experience.