Gisella Perl - Out of the Ashes

When deciding what to write my final paper on, I knew I wanted to research about something that had to do with the experimentations that took place in the concentration camps, namely Auschwitz. Though I ultimately decided to focus on Mengele and the twin experimentations, I read a lot about Gisela Perl while doing my research. After reading through her memoir, I was a Doctor at Auschwitz I realized that I'd heard her story before. It had been made into a movie for Showtime called Out of the Ashes. Both pieces of media tell the same story and I think they offer a somewhat unique perspective because they come from a woman who was a prisoner in Auschwitz, but also a physician there.



Before the war, Perl had been working as a gynecologist in Sighet. She was deported to Birkenau in 1944. After passing the initial selection, Gisella Perl became an inmate and was selected to work in the camp "hospital." She was hopeful that she would be able to help her fellow inmates, but there was a lack of instruments, medical supplies, and food. Dr. Perl performed surgery on hundreds of patients without anesthesia in the hospital at Auschwitz. She most commonly worked on women - performing abortions and trying to mend the wound inflicted upon them by other surgeons. For many of the inmates, she could offer no help but an encouraging word. Besides the highest level of perpetrators, it is nearly impossible to determine who else should be guilty. Especially in this case - where the alleged perpetrator is also a victim. Perl's story goes to show how complex the Holocaust is and that there will never be ultimate justice or settlement in regard to its atrocities and events.

(patient in the infirmary)

The most fascinating thing about Perl's story as it relates to aspects of the Holocaust discussed in class is that her role as a physician in Auschwitz has caused to subject of ethical scrutiny. Some people consider Perl a murderer, and some a hero. No one knew the motive behind Mengele's actions before it was too late. Perl did not know why he asked her to find all the pregnant woman at first -- she did not know they were all to die. Once the tides changed and pregnant women began to be experimented on, Perl desperately tried to perform abortions on the women in an effort to save or prolong their lives. Many post-war considerations of Dr. Perl's actions understand the choices she was forced to make while in Auschwitz. Most of her fellow prisoners understood the doctor's rationale and appreciated her efforts. This was not always the case, however. She had to undergo interrogation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in an attempt to ensure she did not sympathize with the Nazis after she received a temporary license to lecture in the US after the war. She was prepared to testify against the murderer as a war criminal, Mengele eluded authorities and was never brought to trial. Dr. Perl was able to practice gynecology again and later moved to Israel where she died in 1988.

The question of guilt plays a pivotal role in Dr. Perl's story. The line which determines guilt and innocence in regard to the Holocaust is incredibly blurred. Most people would agree that Mengele was guilty of war crimes, but what about people like Perl? I think that it is almost impossible to point fingers as someone like Gisella Perl because nobody - not even other prisoners - know what it was like to be in her position.