Louis Micheels
Louis J. Micheels was a Dutch Jewish physician, and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Born in Amsterdam, Micheels became an inmate of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942, together with his fiancée. Then a medical student, he worked as a nurse in the men's ward. According to his own testimony, he was involved in acts of resistance in the camp, such as concealing case records and hiding prisoners who would otherwise be selected for execution due to poor health.
He was one of the prisoners assisted by the SS physician there, Hans Münch. One of Münch's last acts before the camp was abandoned was to provide him with a revolver to assist his escape. It was the testimony of prisoners like Micheels that resulted in Münch's acquittal by the Supreme National Tribunal at Auschwitz trials in Kraków in 1947. Münch was the only person acquitted by that tribunal.
After the war Micheels moved to the United States. He became a psychoanalyst, a member and president of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Institute and Society, practiced psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Westport, Connecticut, and was an associate clinical professor at the School of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. He also wrote a memoir about his experiences in Auschwitz, Dr. 117641: A Holocaust Memoir, published by the Yale University Press and translated into at least three languages.
Designed by Paul Rudolph, his house in Westport has gained recognition as a valuable example of Modernist architecture.
Micheels died on his 91st birthday in 2008 in his home in Newton, Massachusetts.Works
