Miklos Nyiszli

Miklós Nyiszli was born on 17 June 1901 in Szilágysomlyó (Simleu Silvaniei) in Transylvania, at the time in the Austro-Hungarian empire.

He studied medicine, first in Cluj in 1920, then in Kiel between 1921 and 1924.

In 1926 he enrolled at the medical faculty of the Silesian Friedrich Wilhelm University in Breslau, completing his degree in 1929. In Germany, Nyiszli specialised in forensic pathology; his doctoral dissertation dealt with indications of causes of death in suicides. He studied and worked under the supervision of Karl Reuter, the director of the Breslau Institute of Forensic Medicine, and Georg Strassmann, pathologist and professor of forensic medicine at the University of Breslau.

In 1930, Nyiszli returned to Transylvania and began practicing in the town of Oradea. He soon established himself as a forensic pathologist, often assisting the police and the courts in identifying unusual or disputed causes of death.

In 1937, he moved with his wife and daughter to Maramures in northern Transylvania, to the small town of Viseul de Sus, where he opened a private practice.

Following the Vienna Award of August 1940, Northern Transylvania was returned to Hungary.

In 1942, Nyiszli was sent to the work camp in the village of Desze (Desesti), also in Maramures, from where in May 1944 he and his family were deported to Germany.

First he worked on the construction site of the artificial rubber factory being built by IG Farben in nearby Monowitz (Auschwitz III); in June 1944 the Nyiszli family was transferred to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. In Auschwitz he was tattooed with his camp number: A 8450. His studies at a prestigious German university with respected specialists impressed SS medical officer Dr. Josef Mengele, who was looking for an assistant. He became a Jewish inmate doctor and forensic pathologist who worked particularly for Mengele in the crematorium II in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

He remained there until January 1945. After Auschwitz, came Mauthausen, Melk and Ebensee in Upper Austria.

In July 1945, upon his return to Transylvania, he offered his deposition before the Budapest Commission for the Welfare of Deported Hungarian Jews. Nyiszli's wife and daughter survived as well.

The family settled again in Oradea, now Romania, where Nyiszli opened a private practice in 1946.

Nyiszli finished writing his memoirs, which he published in 1946, in a serialised form in the Hungarian newspaper "Világ" ("The World"), and in March 1946 as a book under the title "Dr Mengele boncolóorvosa voltam az Auschwitz-i [sic] krematóriumban" ("I was Dr Mengele's autopsy doctor at the Auschwitz crematorium"). Nyiszli's memoirs were at that time the first publication on the unknown subject of the 'Sonderkommandos' and it became an important document for historical research on Auschwitz, still highly recommended today by expert Dr. Gideon Greif.

As an important witness Nyiszli travelled to the Nuremberg Trials and offered on 8 September 1947 his deposition to one of the interrogators in the Medical Trials, Benvenuto von Halle.

By 1948, he could no longer practice as a private doctor.

His daughter Susanna married in 1952 and had a daughter, Monica.

His memoirs "Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account" inspired later (in part) the feature films The Grey Zone (2001) and Son of Saul (2015). His character appears in both films.