The Layers of Trauma in Gisella Perl’s I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz

Contemporary trauma theory argues that trauma operates in a binary, linear fashion that represents healing from a crisis. As one of the foremost trauma theorists, Cathy Caruth situates trauma within a binary framework of either victim or perpetrator but does not fully account for victims who became perpetrators or those who perpetrated for survival—or for the survival of others. One example of such a figure is Gisella Perl. In her memoir I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz, Perl describes multiple layers of trauma that create a deeper connection to her emotions and her lived experience in Auschwitz. Unlike other Holocaust memoirists, Perl occupies a unique subject position as an ‘inbetween,’ a person who perpetrated as a means to save others as well as herself. This position acknowledges different emotions and pathways to trauma. Caruth’s revolutionary theory, however, does not address the differences among traumas or the multiple convergences that arise from alternating roles within traumatic contexts, especially during genocidal and wartime events such as the Holocaust. Trauma theory itself struggles to consider how humanity—and the human mind—changes in concentration camps due to the collapse of ordinary social structures. Ultimately, we must turn to the literary field to illuminate how trauma functions within survivors in order to develop a new version of trauma theory—as Michelle Balaev has begun to do—that explains those who do not fit within the mold defined by contemporary trauma theory, such as Perl.