Miklós Nyiszli was een Joodse gevangene in het concentratiekamp Auschwitz. Hij bood vrijwillig zijn medische vaardigheden aan en werkte eraan om zieken te helpen met basale benodigdheden. Zijn bekwaamheid trok de aandacht van SS-officier Josef Mengele, die hem overplaatste naar een speciaal gebouwd operatiekwartier in een crematorium. Nyiszli raakte betrokken bij de grimmige ingrepen die daar plaatsvonden, een bewijs van de ijzingwekkende omstandigheden van het kamp.
When the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, they sent virtually the entire Jewish population to Auschwitz. A Hungarian Jew and a medical doctor, Dr Miklos Nyiszli was spared from death for a grimmer fate: to perform scientific research on his fellow inmates under the supervision of the infamous Angel of Death: Dr Josef Mengele.
Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, physician and former prisoner No. A-8450 of Auschwitz Concentration Camp was employed at the Birkenau crematoria and pyres that devoured millions of fathers, mothers and children.... "I learned the history of the crematoria. Tens of thousands of prisoners had built them out of stone and concrete, Despite the harsh winter weather, deadlines had to be met. Every stone had been stained with the blood of unfortunate Jewish prisoners. Hungry and cold, dressed in rags, fed with pigs' swill, these wretches had worked day and night to build a terrible death factory that would later turn their bodies to ash on the gridirons they themselves had installed.... One early evening I was left alone with my dark thoughts. I suddenly heard a terrifying scream abruptly interrupted by a gunshot and then the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground. Less than a minute later there was another terrifying scream and another gunshot and the sound of a body collapsing on the floor. I counted seventy such horrifying mortal cries, seventy such shots and seventy falls.... I entered the room. After what I heard I braced myself to see something shocking, but the scene I now encountered surpassed all my imaginings..."