Reviews for Memoirs of a Poor City Boy:From Penniless Youth to Chemist and Doctor

The average rating for Memoirs of a Poor City Boy:From Penniless Youth to Chemist and Doctor based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-03-23 00:00:00 Rick Simmons To the Holocaust denier, Dr. Miklós Nyiszli's eyewitness account to the hell that played out at Auschwitz would read like a remarkable work of fiction. To those of us living on planet earth the truth is relentless, unbearable, and should never be forgotten. All the youngsters who neglect history, and keep whining on about life need to read this. I had a pretty good idea how this was going to read, but that didn't make it any less painful. It hurt. There was just no let-up, the Nazi conveyor belt of death moving continually twenty-four-seven. Even though I knew beforehand, the amount of Jews mass murdered I still simply cannot and will not ever fully grasp, how could man do this? it's just beyond my realms of thinking. My blood runs cold just thinking about it. I am numb. For Romanian born Sonderkommando Physician Miklós Nyiszli, every second spent working under the watchful eye of S.S. Dr. Josef Mengele was sacred, death could have been waiting for him at any given time. One mistake, and it's certains. So many moments arose when he thought, that's it, only to be spared. Had he not been able to perform autopsies at the hands of the Reich, this book wouldn't exist. Hope had no place here, every Sonderkommando work unit had a life span, the new would Cremate the old. Nyiszli witnessed this twelve times during his stay, before catching sight of the last S.S. coward leaving the camp for good, closing the Iron gates, cutting off the lights, Nyiszli seeing this enormous cemetery of European Judaism sink into darkness. His eyes lingered for what seemed like an eternity, through the barbed wire fence of the camp, the rows of barracks stood out against the night sky. This cemetery of millions, without a single grave. With a racing heart, he was on the path to freedom... It all began for Nyiszli, specializing in forensic pathology and carrying out medical duties for both the police and the courts, gaining valuable experience in identifying unusual or disputed deaths in the corpses he examined. Of course this being before war broke out. Little did he realise this would not only help to save his life, but also pass on valuable knowledge in the Reich's evil machine during the final solution. He was left with little choice. After being rounded up, shipped off, to then an unknown destination, who can guess what went through his mind. Surely not this? Nyiszli lived and breathed the stale air, surrounded by the ghosts of the dead and the men of the Sonderkommando throughout his time in Auschwitz. And for a long time his account of the day to running of Auschwitz was virtually the only record of what really happened behind the gates of hell. He had many duties, from patching up prisoners and S.S. men, to later working for Josef Mengele as a pathologist. Mengele had a specific interest in anthropology, and had Nyiszli look closely at the bodies of many sets of twins, ranging from infants to those older, in the hope of learning more genetically. It also becomes apparent Mengele engaged in sadistic often fatal experiments on the living, which grossly violated commonly accepted ethical standards of medicine and clinical research. I thought this man would be as bad as it gets, who could be lower ? I was wrong. As another truly evil monster was waiting, Oberscharführer Mussfeld. At least Mengele showed the smallest amount of emotion, whilst Mussfeld was void of any. A human killing machine, the worse of his kind, who liked to put a bullet in the back of the neck of his victims, some not killed outright, left to suffer. It's off the scale thinking numbers wise, but it didn't in the least bit bother him to exterminate hundreds of screaming prisoners of all ages at a time. So along with the gas, there was the bullet, and later on not to my surprise, the flamethrower, typical Nazi mentality, no one gets an easy death, even those attempting suicide were bought back, only to end up like the rest. In fact Nyiszli helped save a member of the Sonderkommando, who tried to put himself to sleep. Others begged him to let the man go peacefully, away from this hell on earth, he didn't listen, and deeply regretted his decision. On gaining more trust with Mengele, and not talking on subjects other than work, Nyiszli, with an air of confidence simply asked one day 'when is this all going to stop?', Mengele replied 'never, it goes on and on and on'. Nyiszli knew, that if he dared to raise his voice or act with criticism and doubts, his life might well be forfeit, and the descriptions in his accounts here show how careful he had to be in regards his relations with Mengele. He walked on a fine tightrope. Never to over step the boundary of his status. He needed to remind himself from time to time that despite having extra privileges, he was still a dead man walking, it was only a matter of time. He writes as a doctor, or in other words, as a dispassionate clinical observer, perhaps this was the only way of escaping his torment, and the numbing horrors that were carried out not far from his room. The clinical, factual nature of events gives this account added value. It's written in a way that shows self-control rather than an out pouring of grief and pain. But this is clearly hard to contain, as many times you feel he just wants to break down, who can blame him? It's all about what his eyes witness, not the mind, his own thoughts are second nature, although his wife and daughter remain close in his heart, he had little time to dwell on the chimneys of doom, or the screams of the many, having become so use to them. What good would it have done anyway? All he could do was please the S.S with his work, carry on living, until he didn't. But a breakthrough came when an attack by kommando rebels claimed one of the four crematorium as well as many S.S. This was the beginning of the end, and the Reich knew it. With the Red Army approaching, the S.S. destroyed as much of the camp as they could before fleeing, and for the first time since his arrival, Miklós Nyiszli was filled with hope of getting out alive. And thus telling the world about the worst atrocity to hit the 20th century. Miklós Nyiszli died in may 1956, I hope his final thoughts were filled with love and his family, not the barbaric bastards who held him captive.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-31 00:00:00 Jon Schneider This was a short and gripping read, and tells a story that must never be forgotten. I am writing this review not to comment on the story itself, but in response to some of the criticisms I have read about the book. Criticism #1: Dr Miklos Nyiszli was at Birkenau rather than Auschwitz, and there are several inconsistencies in the book between Auschwitz and Birkenau. Response: Auschwitz and Birkenau were part of one larger complex collectively called Auschwitz. I believe that perhaps the colloquial references to the name of the camp heard while living there are just simply unclear to those of us who weren't there. I sometimes found the descriptions of the layout of the camp in the book confusing, but I believe they made sense with Dr. Nyiszli's recollection of Auschwitz-Birkenau when he was there. Criticizm #2: The doctor's descriptions seem detached, therefore the book may have been written by someone else. Response: Technically, the TRANSLATION was written by someone else. I think the phrase "lost in translation" may describe the feeling some readers have expressed. My Criticism: I felt throughout the book that Dr Nyiszli probably was responsible for more of the medical "experiments" (atrocities) than he claimed responsibility for in the book, and pointedly left out details for what he was not proud of. Dr. Mengele was a really bad dude, and I don't think the author would have established the level of trust with Mengele that he did without being more menacing himself. That being said, whatever the doctor did certainly saved his life, and shocking readers with more details of gruesome medical experiments would have people shun the rest of the story. I don't think this book was published until several years after the doctor's death, and I would not be surprised if I found out that someone close to the author edited out gruesome parts of the manuscript before publication. If that happened, it may also explain some of the disconnectedness some readers felt about this book. Overall, I think this was a VERY worthwhile read.