Piroska “Perla” Ovitz (10 Jan 1921 - 9 Sep 2001) - was a member of the Ovitz family: a family of Hungarian Jewish actors/traveling musicians originating from present- day Romania, who survived imprisonment at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Most of them were dwarfs. They were the largest family of dwarfs ever recorded and were the largest family to enter Auschwitz and survive intact; the family of twelve ranged from a 15-month-old baby to a 58-year-old woman.

The Ovitzes—like many other camp inmates—were subjected to various tests. Dr. Josef Mengele's physicians extracted bone marrow and pulled out teeth and hair to find signs of hereditary disease. They poured hot and cold water in their ears and blinded them with chemical drops. Gynecologists inspected the married women.

Perla Ovitz & the rest of her family expected to be killed after Mengele had finished his experiments, but they lived to see the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January 1945. In May 1949 they immigrated to Israel, settled in Haifa, and began their tours again, being quite successful and packing large concert halls. In 1955 they retired and bought a cinema hall. The firstborn of the dwarfs, Rozika Ovitz, died in 1984 at the age of 98. The last adult dwarf survivor of the family, Perla Ovitz, died in 2001.

In the autumn of 1939, Adolf Hitler signed a secret authorization in order to protect participating physicians, medical staff, and administrators from prosecution. This authorization was backdated to September 1, 1939, to suggest that the effort was related to wartime measures.

Hitler's directive authorised a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia of people with disabilities in Nazi Germany. The program aimed to restore the racial "integrity" of the German nation. It also aimed to eliminate what eugenicists and their supporters considered "life unworthy of life": those individuals who—they believed—because of severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical disabilities represented both a genetic and a financial burden on German society and the state.

Now imagine if you were a person with a physical disability within German-occupied Europe. Hitler's directive now meant you automatically had a target on your back. But what if you just so happened to be a Jewish person with a physical disability? Well, this meant that you had a snowball's chance in hell of surviving for very long. And yet, this was the sad reality for Perla Ovitz and her family, for they were a family of dwarves. The condition that Perla and six of her siblings were born with is known as pseudoachondroplasia but in the early 20th century, people like Perla were known to be suffering from simply dwarfism. Despite their physical disability and the fact that they were Jewish, Perla and her family survived Auschwitz-Birkenau and went on to live long lives. Let's travel back in time, to the beginning of Perla's story, and find out how in the hell the Ovitz family beat the odds and survived.

Perla's story, hidden history that has remained long forgotten, is the story of how one woman managed to survive in a world that labeled her as undesirable and inferior & a notorious Nazi doctor obsessed with advancing Hitler’s racial utopia.

For the rest of Perla's story, please check out the audio link provided for EPISODE ELEVEN of our podcast, Hidden History: An Odyssey Through Time

LISTEN NOW: Dr. Mengele's Prized Possession: The True Story of Perla Ovitz:

Tune In With Your Favorite Platform!

Images and Documents

Top row, left to right: Leah, Simon Slomowitz (their coachman and handyman), Sarah, unknown cousin. Middle row: Arie, Frieda, Batia Ovitz, Avram, Micki. Bottom row: Perla, Elizabeth. Rozavlea, 1927.

A fan card, similar to the ones Micki Ovitz handed out to the SS upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Elizabeth Ovitz dressed up as Charlie Chaplin.

Seated from left to right are: Micki, Franziska, Perla, Elizabeth, Rozika, Frieda, Avram and nephew Shimshon. Standing are Sarah, Azriel, his wife Leah holding their daughter Batia, and Moshe Moskowitz, Elizabeth's husband (1949, Antwerp, Belgium, USHMM).

Press photo, left to right are: Elizabeth, Rozika, Perla, Frieda, Franziska and Micki.

Perla, Rozika, Abraham, Frieda, Micki, Franziska and Elizabeth Ovitz: the Lilliput Troupe.

From left to right are: Perla, Elizabeth and Micki (circa 1950 - 1954, Israel, USHMM)

From left to right are: an unknown man, Avram, Perla, Rozika, Frieda, Franziska, Elizabeth, Micki and Sarah. 1950 - 1954 (USHMM)

Avram, Micki, and Perla Ovitz during a stage scene.

Elizabeth & Perla Ovitz.

Top: Rozika and Franziska Ovitz. Bottom: Elizabeth and Frieda Ovitz. Rozavlea, 1930s.

Dr. Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death", at Auschwitz in 1944.

Medical document signed by Dr. Josef Mengele, instructing that blood will be taken from Perla Ovitz.

Wooden Barrack, Immigrant Camp, Haifa, Israel. Pictured are Elizabeth, Perla, Rozika, Frieda, Franziska & Avram.

The Lilliput Troupe perform on stage in Israel, sometime between 1950 and 1954: Elizabeth, Perla, Frieda, Franziska and Micki.

In the back are Sarah Ovitz and Moshe Moskowitz, the husband of Elizabeth. In the front are Frieda, Rozika, Micki, Perla, Elizabeth, Avram and Franziska (Photo circa 1950)

Photo taken by a police photographer in 1956 in Buenos Aires for Mengele's Argentine identification document. In 1979, Mengele suffered a stroke while swimming and drowned in Brazil. The body was buried under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard".

Forensic anthropologists examine Mengele's skull in 1986. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine in Brazil.

Perla Ovitz later in life, date of photo unknown.

Perla grave, Haifa Main Jewish Cemetery, Haifa, Israel. The grave reads: "Here lies the last of the family of dwarfs, Miss Perla Ovitz, daughter of Shimson-Eizik and Batia, who suffered every single day of her life."

Reading Material

The goal of the Nazi Euthanasia Program was to kill people with mental and physical disabilities. In the Nazi view, this would cleanse the “Aryan” race of people considered genetically defective and a financial burden to society. The term "euthanasia" means literally "good death". It usually refers to causing a painless death for a chronically or terminally ill individual who would otherwise suffer.

Learn more by clicking below:

Featured Video

Listen to Perla Ovitz, sometime in the late 1990s, recall the exact moment when her town was invaded by Nazis:

Resources

• Moskowitz, Elizabeth. By Grace of the Satan: The Story of the Dwarves Family in Auschwitz and Dr. Mengele's Experiments. (Rotem Publications: Israel, 1987)

• Koren, Yehuda, and Eilat Negev. Giants: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz. (Biteback Publishing, 2014.)

• https://www.familysearch.org/en/
• https://www.ushmm.org/
• https://www.yadvashem.org/