As an Auschwitz prisoner, Dr. Gisella Perl treated fellow inmates for illnesses caused by starvation, infection, and torture at the hands of their captors.

 As an Auschwitz prisoner, Dr. Gisella Perl treated fellow inmates for illnesses caused by starvation, infection, and torture at the hands of their captors.

She performed hundreds of surgeries without anesthesia or proper medical tools. She told the New York Times in 1982 that she used the only medicine she had: "I treated patients with my voice, telling them beautiful stories, telling them that one day we would have birthdays again, that one day we would sing again." 

Dr. Perl was forced to work with the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. He tasked her with reporting every pregnancy to him, claiming the women would be sent to another camp with better nutrition. Some women came to the camp already pregnant; in other cases, they were raped and became pregnant during their imprisonment.    

Dr. Perl learned quickly that the pregnant women were sent to the gas chamber. As a conservative religious woman and infertility specialist, she was confronted with a terrible choice she never thought she'd consider. Often at night in the barracks with very little in the way of water or equipment, she carried out abortions—saving the lives of hundreds of pregnant women.

After the war, she opened her own practice in New York and delivered more than 3,000 babies.

On National Doctors' Day, we pause to thank the doctors who save lives every day. During the Holocaust, some Jewish doctors dared to risk their own safety to help other victims.