Kalman & Leopold
Richard K. Lowy
Tellwell Talent (2024)
ISBN: 978-1779410092
Reviewed by Joan Kirschner for Reader Views (01/2025)
It is fitting that I began writing this review of “Kalman & Leopold: Surviving Mengele’s Auschwitz” by Richard K. Lowy today, as it is January 27th, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This date was designated by the United Nations General Assembly to commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by the Soviet Red Army in 1945 – now 80 years ago.
Most people are aware that millions of people, including six million Jews, died in their many concentration camps including Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most widely known of those infamous facilities. Many other groups were targeted as well including Roma, Soviet Russians, other Slavic peoples, Poles, and other enemies of the Nazi German government during WWII.
Perhaps a lesser-known aspect of the brutality and horror of Auschwitz-Birkenau was the medical experimentation performed in a program led by Doctor Josef Rudolf Mengele. Mengele was particularly interested in studying dwarfism and young twins, both identical and fraternal. When the prisoners were brought to the camps, these twins and little people were set aside from the masses, the majority of whom went straight to the gas chambers. Instead, the twins and little people became the victims of his gruesome procedures, many of which caused agonizing deaths, dismemberments, or deformities in those who survived.
This book is the historical account of two boys, each half of a set of fraternal twins. They bonded and became allies during their imprisonment at Auschwitz. Each boy had a twin sister, and all were subjected to Mengele’s experiments. Kalman Braun (after World War II, Kalman Baro-On), whose twin sister’s name was Judith. Leopold Lowy (Leo), known as “Lipa” to Kalman during their imprisonment in Auschwitz, had a twin sister named Miriam.
The author, Richard Lowy, is the youngest of Leo’s three sons. He researched his father’s life and hometown in what was then Czechoslovakia near Hungary, as well as his time in Auschwitz. He recorded Leo’s reminisces of his experiences and created a documentary film, Leo’s Journey: The Story of the Mengele Twins. The film was shown on Israeli TV in 2001.
Kalman, meanwhile, had been searching for Lipa for decades. He had relocated to Israel where he made a new life. He saw the film, recognized the adult Leo as the boy he knew as Lipa, and contacted Richard. Years later, the ultimate result of that communication is this book, in which Richard incorporated Kalman’s vivid and highly detailed accounts of his early years and his imprisonment.
In addition to the often horrific and excruciating events of Kalman and Leo’s lives as inmates of the camp, the author included an overview of the creation and development of Auschwitz-Birkenau, along with maps and diagrams of the physical environment. There are also photos, many heartbreakingly graphic and gruesome. All material was augmented by meticulous footnoting that provides explanations of unfamiliar terms, cities and towns that have changed names or political designations, and other contextual facts.
To assist the reader in following the narrative, the author included a list of the family members of Kalman and Leo, information on other individuals important to their experiences – both friends and their opposite – the key locations mentioned, and additional details.
Though much of the book is an unsparing account of what Kalman and Leo endured both inside and outside of Auschwitz, there is an important counterpoint that provides balance to this reading experience. The contrast of the bond they forged, versus the treatment they endured, and the kindness and wisdom they experienced in relationships with other prisoners are what allowed them to retain their humanity. Ultimately, for them, goodness triumphed over evil, and their resilience allowed them to eventually build new and productive lives. While Kalman and Leo were able to survive when sadly many others did not, their experiences are still a testimony to what is possible despite great hardship and the worst possible odds, and that positivity is what most readers will take away from this book.
This is a compelling work for adults and late teen readers. Because of its often harrowing material, it would not be appropriate for younger teen readers to read on their own, though it could provoke meaningful family discussions. It also has potential as a text for history and political science courses on the events of the World War II era, specifically the circumstances that led to the Holocaust and its subsequent impact on world events.