Objective:

The article discusses the potential of memorialistics as a producer of historiographical texts, although distinguishing it from the concept of memory used by historians.

Methodology:

We define memorialistics from a literary criticism approach, understanding the text as a testimonial narrative written by those who participated directly in the reported events. The method employed was, firstly, the internal criticism of sources proposed by Historicism and refined by Marc Bloch in Apologia da História and, secondly, the method proposed by Lawrence Bardin in Content Analysis, which allows the segmentation of the text from key ideas at the discretion of the investigator.

Originality:

It lies, firstly, in the discussion of the status of memorialistics in the field of historiography and, secondly, in the choice of an author who has been little worked on by Holocaust scholars, such as Primo Levi or Elias Wiesel (although we have sought the opinion of Levi about Nyiszli).

Conclusions:

We submitted the book to internal criticism, considering the role played by the memorialist in the medical service of Birkenau in 1944. We demonstrate the ambiguity of the text, mirror of an ambivalent man, prisoner of the Nazis and also an ss' assistant. We conclude, finally, that although the description of procedures prevails, as well as the tone, sometimes moralizing, the book proves the value of memorialistics, not as an explanatory historical text, necessarily, but as a very rich source of information about the Holocaust, generally absent from the documentation of the III Reich, which the state bureaucracy destroyed before the final defeat.