I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz

Reviews / Votes

Seven decades after its first publication, Gisella Perl's account of her time in Auschwitz still has the power to startle and disturb almost beyond the reader's capacity to absorb its awful details. Perl is a faithful reporter, recording, with an unmediated fidelity, the humblest and the most abhorrent physical facts; but her writing is infused with enough rage to have burned several barracks of Auschwitz [and] a power of compassion which accords full, individual humanity to her fellow inmates, whom the Nazis tried so utterly to dehumanize, which give a moral force to Perl's memoir that only a few outstanding chronicles of that time-Primo Levi's in particular-possess. -- Eva Hoffman, author of Lost in Translation In an era that will see the end of direct survivor testimony, the reprint of I Was A Doctor In Auschwitz is a timely and vital contribution to Holocaust studies. Originally published in 1948, Gisella Perl's memoir bears witness to the horrors of the concentration camps but also the cataclysmic rupture of communities and individual lives. Bookended by an eloquent scholarly introduction by editors Lassner and Cohen and an Afterward by the second-generation writer Eva Hoffman, the new edition of Perl's devastating account situates the memoir in the twin genres of survivor narratives and women's Holocaust writing and frames the 'unspeakable,' the 'unimaginable' into a stunning work of testimony and an ongoing act of witnessing. -- Victoria Aarons, Distinguished Professor of Literature, Trinity University Gisela Perl's memoir I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz is a searing document that speaks to the soul of humanity. Perl tells her readers about the hideous inversion of values brought about by Nazi camps of death where killing newborns was necessary to save their mothers lives. First published over 70 years ago, this memoir has great contemporary relevance for an age in which the sanctity of human life is once again being called into question. Phyllis Lassner and Danny M. Cohen are owed an enormous debt of gratitude for helping readers become (re)acquainted with Perl's shattering testimony. -- Alan L. Berger, Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair of Holocaust Studies, Florida Atlantic University Lassner and Cohen deserve praise and gratitude for pursuing and bringing to fruition the republication of I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz. One of the first published by an Auschwitz survivor, Perl's memoir not only recounts the horrors of existence in Auschwitz, which included grave moral challenges and efforts to resist, but also engages many of the questions that have shaped the field of Holocaust Studies. Lassner and Cohen serve the reader well with their outstanding introduction that contextualizes Perl's memoir in the history and the historiography of the Holocaust, particularly as related to understandings of women's experiences. They also chose wisely to end the new edition with a poignant essay by Eva Hoffman. Students and scholars alike will benefit from this new edition for years to come. -- Sarah M. Cushman, director of Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University