The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World

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And the kicker: when two other Jews also escape from Auschwitz and contact the Judenrat to confirm what Vrba and his friend Fred Wetzler bore witness to, Freedland dials up the "first and only" obsession to eleven and says that Vrba, Wetzler, Mordowicz, and Rosin are "the only four Jews on Earth to have escaped from Auschwitz. For example, Kulka's account of the trip to Switzerland was denied by all witnesses, and not supported by the documentary evidence. Vrba details his life leading up to, during, and after his escape from his 21-month internment in Auschwitz.

It’s the first time I’ve read anything of that period written from a Russian’s point of view which ended up in the camps along with others who had been captured. When the Jewish leadership react with incredulity and shock at the report, Freedland is quick to find excuses and attenuating circumstances. Having learnt from the failed attempts of others, Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz, walking across Poland to reach Slovakia.It’s one of the first things we learn about Auschwitz, and one of the hardest to forget: that the Nazis tricked their victims before gassing them. It was 2004, and a cache of letters was found when our parents house was cleared in preparation for sale. He did it to reveal the truth of the death camp to the world—and to warn the last Jews of Europe what fate awaited them at the end of the railway line. Rabbi Leo Baeck, one of the leaders of the Jewish self-administration, had been informed by an anonymous escapee in August 1943.

According to Kárný, Lederer regarded fleeing to Switzerland as cowardice and desertion, even though Kárný notes that his testimony on Auschwitz would have been more credible if he had delivered it in person. Before standing guard at the gate of the family camp on the night of 5 April, Pestek left a bicycle by Lederer's barracks as a signal for him to come out. His account also stands as a memoriam to those whose lives were taken, but whose memory lives on with people like Andrey who knew these people first hand and keep their memory alive.While it did not lead to direct action by America or Great Britain, it was responsible for saving 200,000 Hungarian Jews. The last ambition was largely frustrated, though up to 200,000 Jews who would otherwise have died were spared. Miroslav Kárný said that he and his friends knew before their deportation on 28 September 1944 that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz, but that "no human being could accept these facts as truth". Also, Freedland considers why we don’t know the name Rudolf Vrba like we know Anne Frank or Oskar Schindler.