Jewish Doctors and the Holocaust —— The Anatomy of Survival in Auschwitz

----- 犹太医生和大屠杀：奥斯威辛集中营的生存剖析

ISBN: 9783110596045 出版年：2019 页码：254 Halpin, Ross W De Gruyter Oldenbourg

This is the first attempt to explain how Jewish doctors survived extreme adversity in Auschwitz where death could occur at any moment. The ordinary Jewish slave labourer survived an average of fifteen weeks. Ross Halpin discovers that Jewish doctors survived an average of twenty months, many under the same horrendous conditions as ordinary prisoners. Despite their status as privileged prisoners Jewish doctors starved, froze, were beaten to death and executed. Many Holocaust survivors attest that luck, God and miracles were their saviors. The author suggests that surviving Auschwitz was far more complex. Interweaving the stories of Jewish doctors before and during the Holocaust Halpin develops a model that explains the anatomy of survival. According to his model the genesis of survival of extreme adversity is the will to live which must be accompanied by the necessities of life, specific personal traits and defence mechanisms. For survival all four must co-exist.