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Gisela PerlJewish doctor, woman who helped at Auschwitz
Country:
 Israel |
Biography of Gizella Perl
Gizella Perl was a Jewish doctor who aided women in Auschwitz. As a prisoner in the Auschwitz death camp, Perl saved the lives of thousands of inmates. She secretly performed abortions, aiming to protect unborn children from the cruel experiments of the German doctor Josef Mengele, who did not let any of his subjects survive.
In 1944, when the Nazis invaded Hungary, Dr. Gizella Perl found herself first in the ghetto and then, like many other Jews, became a prisoner in a concentration camp. Upon arrival at Auschwitz, thousands of prisoners were immediately separated from the rest and sent to the crematorium. Perl was among the surviving group who underwent the humiliating disinfection procedure and was distributed to the barracks. She witnessed hundreds of young women being kept in cages in one of the blocks. They were forced to be blood donors for German soldiers. Some of the drained girls lay on the floor, unable to utter a word. Pale and weakened, the enemy's donors continued to be tortured, with blood regularly taken from their veins. Perl managed to save a vial of poison in case her life was to be taken sadistically. She even attempted to poison herself, but the drug didn't work. Perhaps her body was able to overcome the poison. Perhaps fate itself cared to protect Gizella's life.
The Hungarian doctor helped women with both words and deeds. She shared incredible, kind, and uplifting stories with the prisoners, charging everyone around her with positivity and instilling hope in the desperate captives. In the conditions of terrible unsanitary conditions, where it was impossible to obtain medications, painkillers, and medical instruments, Gizella's experience was enough to perform operations with just a knife. To silence the screams of the women, Perl would put gags in their mouths.
Perl ended up in the clinic of Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death from Auschwitz." This German doctor ordered the collection of all pregnant women. Mengele performed autopsies on live infants, devised all kinds of inhumane experiments on women, and forced those who "managed" to survive his atrocities to be killed.
Not wanting to comply with Mengele's orders, Perl did her best to rid women of their pregnancies. She secretly induced labor and performed abortions. The next day after the procedures, the women had to go to work to avoid arousing suspicion from the Nazis. Gizella managed to give the patients an opportunity to rest by giving them pneumonia. During her time in Auschwitz, Perl performed about three thousand operations, ensuring that women would still be able to experience the joy of motherhood in the future.
Towards the end of World War II, some prisoners, including Gizella, were transferred from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen camp. Liberation came in 1945, but few of the prisoners lived to see this joyful moment. Trying to find her relatives, Gizella learned that none of them had survived. In 1947, Perl went to the United States. Tormented by the memories of the horrors that took place in Mengele's laboratory, Perl initially did not want to return to medicine. On the other hand, her rich experience pushed her to become a doctor again.
At some point, Gizella came under suspicion due to her connections with the Nazis. She confessed that she sometimes assisted in the horrifying and repulsive experiments of Mengele, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. However, Perl also spoke about how she did everything possible at night to save women in the barracks and alleviate their suffering.
Only after all suspicions were cleared, Perl was allowed to return to work as a gynecologist at a hospital in New York. For several years, Gizella helped mothers give birth to over 3,000 children. Every time she stepped into the delivery room, Perl prayed to God that He "owed her life, owed her a living child."
Gizella moved to Israel in 1979, where she continued her work. She never forgot how, in the train that brought her and her family to the concentration camp, she and her husband and father swore to meet in Jerusalem one day.
Perl passed away in 1988. More than a hundred people came to bid farewell to the courageous woman. The Jerusalem Post, which published her obituary, referred to Gizella as the "Angel of Auschwitz."
