Let us get right into the outrageous Nyiszli claims. For this article I will be citing his book I Was Dr. Mengele’s Forensic Pathologist in the Auschwitz Crematorium, published in 1946.
Nyiszli claims to have spent months in the Birkenau crematoria. He also bragged about his command of the German language, stating, “It impresses them that I speak their language more perfectly than they do.” Carlo Mattogno, expert noticer, observed that Nyiszli used German terms liberally. However, he only did so with terms that anyone in the camp could have picked up on. From Mattogno’s book, An Auschwitz Doctor’s Eyewitness Account (page 190):
Nyiszli had indeed studied medicine in Germany, where he lived for ten years during the 1920s. His various statements are replete with German terms, starting with the names for SS ranks. The terms which recur most often undoubtedly are Sonderkommandó and Kommandó, written with the Hungarian long-vowel accent over the final -ó. Apart from certain geographical names, names of newspapers, institutions and the like, and apart from some rather improbable dialogues which he recounts with evident satisfaction (but which he would have had to have recorded or stenographed to report accurately), the terms relative to concentration camp life which appear in the book are as follows: Arzt (doctor), Appel (recte Appell, roll-call), Appelplatz (Appellplatz, roll-call square), zur Sektion (for autopsy), S.D.G. Sanitätsdienstgefreiter (private in the medical service; the meaning was actually Sanitätsdienstgrad, leaving the military rank (Dienstgrad) open), Kriminaldoktor (“criminal doctor” 215), Passierschein (pass, permit), Fkl (Frauenkonzentrationslager, women’s concentration camp), I. [erster] Lagerarzt (chief camp physician), Lagerpolizei (camp police), Zählappel (Zählappell, numbering roll call), “Antreten, alle antreten” (“Fall in, everyone fall in”; order to line up for roll call), Arbeitslager (labor camp) and K.Z. (Konzentrationslager, concentration camp).
When it came to terms that Nyiszli as Mengele’s assistant should have picked up he only uses one. From Mattogno (page 191):
With the sole exception of krematórium, a word which moreover was known to all prisoners in Birkenau, Nyizli never utilizes any of the numerous German terms in common use for describing cremation or the cremation furnaces and their elements, such as: Einäscherung (incineration, cremation), Verbrennung (burning, combustion), Ofen (furnace), Einäscherungsofen (cremation furnace), Dreimuffel Einäscherungsofen (triple-muffle cremation furnace), Muffel (muffle, cremation chamber), Einführungstür (introduction door), Schamotterost (chamotte grill, i.e., the refractory-brick grill which formed the floor of the muffle), Aschenraum (“ash” [i.e., bone fragment] collector beneath the refractory-brick grill), Generator (gasifier), Feuerung (hearth), Rauchkanal (smoke channel, flue), Druckluftanlage (forced-air system), Druckluftgebläse (forced-air blower), Trage or Einführtrage (corpseintroduction stretcher), Beheizung (heating of the furnaces), Verbrennungsraum (cremation room), Ofenraum (furnace room), Schornstein (chimney), Schamotte (chamotte, refractory clay), Koks (coke) and koksbeheizt (cokefired), Heizer (stoker) and Rauch (smoke).
Why would Nyiszli, who liked to boast of his German skills, not include the lingo of the crematoria? The most logical answer is that he never worked in the crematoria, especially considering the Nyiszli’s other mistakes I’ve pointed out already along with the next one I’m about to share.
Many of my readers might already be familiar with Nyiszli’s fantastical story of a girl that survived the alleged gassing. From chapter 20 of Nyiszli’s book:
I grab my always-packed doctor’s bag and race with him down to the gas chamber. Directly next to the wall near the entrance to the enormous room, half-buried by corpses, a young woman’s body writhes and gives off gasping noises. The men of the gas Kommando stand around me in agitation. Such a thing has never happened in their horrible work! We free the still-moving body from the corpses lying on top of it. I take it in my arms. I carry it, the slight body of a young girl, into the room next to the gas chamber. Here the gas Kommando was accustomed to change for their work.
I pull out my injection kit and I give the scarcely breathing, unconscious girl three injections one after another in her arms. […] As a result of the injections I gave, her pulse is already beating quite noticeably. I wait patiently: the injections have not yet been completely absorbed, but I already see that in just a few more minutes she will come around. And so it happens.
From there Nyiszli describes the girl’s symptoms: “Something burns her eyes, stifles her throat.”
What a dramatic and unbelievable thing to happen in real life!
Unfortunately for Nyiszli there are many plot holes in his little story that Mattogno has so kindly pointed out in his analysis (pages 223-226). First, the room was not “enormous”—it was 210 square meters. That is almost as big as a tennis court. Holocaust officials claim that 2000 people could be gassed in that room. The picture below is what that would look like. There wouldn’t have been any space for pile of corpses.
Secondly, the room next to the alleged gas chamber (1) was actually a vestibule (circled) where the lift was located (2). It certainly wouldn’t have been a place where Sonderkommando changed for work. And no, this wasn’t a little mistake on Nyiszli’s part. You don’t work in a place for months and make mistakes like that. This is more evidence that Nyiszli never set foot inside a crematoria building.
Finally, Nyiszli attributes the symptoms of chlorine poisoning (see below) to the girl as he had the mistaken belief that Zyklon B was chlorine in granular form. The treatment for chlorine poisoning was an injection of stimulants and Nyiszli did mention giving the girl three injections. Although he didn’t mention what the injections were—pretty weird omission for a doctor. Hydrogen cyanide, which is what Zyklon B was actually made of, does not produce the symptoms that Nyiszli mentions.
All of this is more evidence that Nyiszli was just a regular prisoner at the camp, and working as Mengele’s assistant doing terrible things to twins was just a product of his imagination. What kind of person would not only imagine such things, but also present his story to the world as the truth? If anyone is a sick and twisted doctor here it’s Nyiszli, not Mengele.
If you would like to read about even more of Nyiszli’s absurd lies you can check out Mattogno’s book, and even download a free PDF, here.