Random Stories About The Angel of Auschwitz Saved Thousands of Lives By Defying Nazis (12 items)

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  (#1) She And Her Family Were Separated Forever As Soon As They Got To Auschwitz

  Before Auschwitz became a stark reality, Gisella Perl worked as a successful Jewish gynecologist in Romania where she lived with her husband and two children. When her town was invaded in 1944, she made the spontaneous decision to leave her daughter in the safe keeping of some non-Jewish neighbors just hours before the Nazis knocked on her door. Soon loaded on a train with her husband, son, and elderly parents, Perl would endure a harrowing eight-day journey towards the living hell known as Auschwitz. Upon arrival, the family was immediately separated, never to see each other again. 

  But Perl was not like the other women in her barrack - she was a medical doctor and a professional who could be useful to the Nazis. Her skills were valuable in a place where disease and death were rife, and she was soon placed in the camp's medical ward where she would meet the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele. As her captor and supervisor, she was subject to his every demand, even those that involved horrific experiments on human prisoners. 
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  (#2) She Was Tricked Into Killing Pregnant Women

  S.S. officers had an affinity for whipping the bare breasts of women at Auschwitz, and Perl was responsible for healing these wounds and performing surgery on pregnant woman in distress. The appalling medical conditions of the camp made her job painfully difficult, as there was little running water, no anesthesia, and no clean equipment. She tended to everything from diseases brought on by torture, filth, starvation, and vermin to skulls cracked open by violence.

  Before Perl understood the implications of her role as Mengele's assistant, she tried to satisfy his wishes by rounding up all the pregnant women in the camp for his inspection. He told her he wanted to make sure they were being properly fed and cared for. But his true intentions became clear the day Perl delivered up 50 expecting mothers to his medical ward, only to see them herded into a Red Cross truck and driven directly to the ovens. Devastated by her lapse in judgment and riddled with guilt at the deaths of these innocent women, Perl could barely stand living another day.
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  (#3) She Performed Abortions In The Dark

  Once Perl fully understood the intentions of Dr. Mengele, she made a conscious decision to work against him. She knew he was targeting pregnant women for his research - a fact that would only lead them to death - and she was determined to put a stop to his crimes. If he was hell bent on butchering the pregnant women at Auschwitz, she would have to help these innocent mothers find a way to escape their dire situation. So, she began performing secret abortions in the barracks at night - in filthy conditions - working in the dark so Mengele and the S.S. officers would not suspect anything. She knew their plight in the camps could not be permanent, and if she could just keep these pregnant women alive for a while longer, perhaps they could go on to have healthy families someday. 
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  (#4) Her Boss Was A Medical Maniac

  Dr. Josef Mengele was not just any doctor during the Holocaust - he was a medical maniac of the highest order. Interested in the difference between identical twins and people with physical abnormalities like heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), Mengele performed endless experimental surgeries on prisoners who could offer no resistance at Auschwitz. Given the circumstances of the war, he was accountable to no one and was able to validate his work using grant money from the government. His medical ward was conveniently attached to the crematorium, which heightened the ease of his experimentation and made disposal of bodies simple. Perl bore witness to these atrocities, and, even worse, she was expected to assist him whenever he requested. 
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  (#5) She Watched As The Angel Of Death Performed Horrific Experiments On Prisoners

  One of 30 doctors at Auschwitz, Mengele was driven by his own psychotic need to understand the physiques of different races and what made them unique. His favorite time of day was when the new prisoners landed on the train platform, and he was able to hand-pick his medical subjects out of the hundreds of unsuspecting women and children. He was, of course, never short on subjects and had a wide variety to choose from, always selecting those who he believed would best further his medical research. Once assigned to his ward, the prisoners were likely in store for a lengthy period of torture before they welcomed death with open arms. Mengele was known to perform medical dissections on conscious patients and use pregnant women and their unborn fetuses as guinea pigs in his perverse studies. When the procedures ended in death, he simply tossed the bodies in the crematorium. 
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  (#6) She Remembers Killing A Living Baby

  Perl's grief at the tasks she had to perform at Auschwitz was immense; she even tried to commit suicide in the years following her release. This grief was also greatly compounded by her memories of the pregnant women at Auschwitz and the many lost babies she witnessed. While most people respected her decision to help the innocent through aborting fetuses, there were still those who found her decision highly controversial.

  All in all, she is estimated to have performed close to 3,000 abortions during her time at Auschwitz and, by her own admission, even induced early labor in some women who were too far gone. These babies were mostly underdeveloped and died instantly in the darkness of the barracks. In her memoir, she also tells the story of one young woman who was so close to full term, the baby was born alive. Although Perl tried to keep it safe, she was terrified the guards would hear his cries, which would surely mean death for some. So, she took the "little warm body in her hands, kissed the smooth face, then strangled him and buried him under a mountain of corpses waiting to be cremated."
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  (#7) She Couldn't Get The Horrors Of Auschwitz Out Of Her Mind

  When Perl was finally liberated from the hell of the camps, she published a memoir in 1948, I Was a Doctor At Auschwitz, in which she chronicled some of her darkest moments at the camp. The brutal tactics at the camp were legendary, and Perl was deeply scarred by her time there and the lengths she had to go to in saving innocent lives. The senseless violence and death of that time haunted her for many, many years, much of which is carefully recounted in her autobiography.

  "Women 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... They were beaten with clubs and whips, torn by dogs, dragged around by their hair and kicked in the stomach with heavy German boots. Then, when they collapsed, they were thrown into the crematory–alive."
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  (#8) She Was Forced To Do Things She Would've Found Unthinkable Before The War

  In her memoir, Perl illustrated the deeply nefarious way the Nazis handled the prisoners at Auschwitz, not just torturing them physically but emotionally as well. She wrote:

  "One of the basic Nazi aims was to demoralize, humiliate, ruin us, not only physically but also spiritually. They did everything in their power to push us into the bottomless depths of degradation. Their spies were constantly among us to keep them informed about every thought, every feeling, every reaction we had, and one never knew who was one of their agents. There was only one law in Auschwitz - the law of the jungle - the law of self-preservation. Women who in their former lives were decent self-respecting human beings now stole, lied, spied, beat the others and - if necessary - killed them, in order to save their miserable lives. Stealing became an art, a virtue, something to be proud of."

  In this way, she too became a victim of these circumstances, committing acts she would have otherwise found despicable. But, in these unique conditions, what she knew before in life no longer applied - there were new rules in place, and she had to work within them, no matter how difficult it may have been. The alternative was simply death.
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  (#9) She Treated Desperate Prisoners With Her Voice And Her Hands

  Women who survived the war remember the kindness and compassion of Perl and how she helped many people endure the unthinkable. She would walk the ward at night, distributing ointment to those suffering from rashes and talking to others wracked with pain and desperation. She would often whisper kind words or calming stories to women on the edge of sanity, reminding them they would live again someday and reclaim their lives. She reminded them to be survivors and keep their hopes up for the future. She treated them with her voice as well as her hands, even singing songs of Rosh Hashanah in a way to mark the Jewish new year. To the women at Auschwitz, she was a hero.
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  (#10) She Was Liberated Only To Find Her Family Was Dead

  There was only one other camp during the Holocaust with the same terrifying reputation as Auschwitz - a place called Bergen-Belsen. Towards the end of the war, Perl was transferred there as the Nazis tried to consolidate and dispose of the remaining Jews before approaching armies discovered them. Once she was liberated, she (along with millions of others) began searching for her lost family, only to discover her husband, son, and parents had all died just a few weeks before liberation. As soon as she was able, Perl left Europe and tried to enter the US, but she was heavily interrogated by the naturalization service who suspected her to be a Nazi sympathizer. Her post-traumatic suffering and grief were intense during that time, and she even attempted suicide - but she was finally granted US citizenship in 1951. She went on to deliver many healthy babies afterward, which she felt God owed her.
   
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  (#11) She Went On To Deliver Thousands Of Healthy Babies

  Perl was the first to admit her time as a doctor at Auschwitz was more about hastening death than healing - words that stand as a testament to the insanity of the Holocaust. After the war, her story became synonymous with heroism, and she even became friendly with Eleanor Roosevelt who persuaded her to return to medicine. After some years, she returned to work as a gynecologist at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital where she specialized in fertility treatment. Delivering thousands of healthy babies to grateful mothers was a fitting end for Perl who had watched so much suffering in the past. As a way to acknowledge the darkness of Auschwitz, Perl always said the same prayer at the entrance of the delivery room, “God, you owe me a life–a living baby.” And most of the time, her wish was granted.
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  (#12) She Found Her Lost Daughter And Moved To Israel

  Perl was later reunited with her lost daughter, Gabriella, and her grandson. Although life had resumed for Perl, she could not forget the parting scene with her family before they were separated at Auschwitz. As they were removed from the cattle car that fateful day and seized by Nazi officers, she was embraced by her husband and her father who told her, "We will meet someday in Jerusalem." Perl felt it was now time to make that dream come true and moved with her family back to Herzliya, Israel where she would attempt to fulfill this final vow to the loved ones she lost in the Holocaust. Perl died at 81 in 1988 and would be forever remembered as the "Angel of Auschwitz" who brought mercy to the innocent.

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