Long-lost diary of Nazi racial theorist and Hitler confidant recovered

Photo: ICE HSI. Click to enlarge.





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The true story of the woman who performed mercy abortions at Auschwitz

Gisella Perl was Romanian and Jewish. She was a gynaecologist at a time and place where very few women went into the medical professions. In 1944, she and her entire family were shipped off to Auschwitz, where Perl was instructed to provide medical care for her fellow inmates — medical care that was supposed to happen without even the most basic medical supplies.

In this position, she was officially employed by Josef Mengele, and she saw what happened to women who entered Auschwitz while pregnant. The short answer was death. The long answer was that those deaths were often horrifying and drawn-out. So Gisella Perl gave herself a new job — protecting women by helping them hide evidence of pregnancy and by performing abortions with her bare hands.

I'd never heard Perl's story before. It's heartbreaking. And it's riveting. The Holocaust History Project has a long and well-cited version.






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Anne Frank is a Mormon again


Art Spiegelman lecture on Maus

In this fascinating hour-long Seton Hall lecture, Art Spiegelman expounds on Maus, his Pulitzer-winning graphic novel history of the Holocaust, providing excellent companion material to Metamaus, the new book that recounts Maus's history, which came out last month.

Art Spiegelman lecture