First published 2012
Dr. Miklos Nyiszli arrives at Auschwitz in 1944 with countless other Hungarian Jews. The Nazis spare him from immediate death but assign him a horrific role. He must work as personal pathologist to Dr. Josef Mengele, the camp's notorious physician. Nyiszli performs medical research on fellow prisoners under Mengele's direction. He witnesses the systematic murder of his people while participating in experiments that violate every principle of his profession. The doctor faces an impossible choice between his own survival and his moral obligations. He documents the daily horrors of the camp and Mengele's twisted scientific pursuits. Nyiszli somehow survives the war and emerges to tell his story. His account reveals the brutal machinery of the Holocaust through the eyes of someone forced to collaborate with his oppressors. The narrative exposes how the Nazis corrupted medicine and science for genocidal purposes.
Genres: holocaust, historical-fiction, medical, 20th-century, non-fiction, biography-memoir
Vibes: dark, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: moral-dilemma, survival
Setting: Auschwitz
Period: 1944
199 pages · Kindle Edition · Penguin
Content warnings: abuse, death, gore, medical-trauma, murder, racism, torture, violence