Evadatul de la Auschwitz

Jonathan Freedland tells how Rudolf Vrba fled and warned others. In April 1944, Vrba was 19 years old. He and Fred Wetzler became two of the first Jews to escape Auschwitz. This life story traces their flight and its wider effects. It is for readers drawn to the Holocaust and survivors’ accounts.

Vrba had seen how the camp’s mass murder system worked. He risked his life to learn its details by heart. He sought to warn Europe’s Jews of their fate. The Nazis had kept that fate from them. To escape, they had to pass electric fences and watchtowers. They also had to get past SS guards and dogs. The two men then crossed swamps, woods, mountains and rivers.

Once free, Vrba and Wetzler wrote a 32-page report. It reached Roosevelt, Churchill and the pope. It helped save 200,000 Jews. Freedland asks how facts can save lives when lies hide danger. He also asks how people can fight ruin, not accept it. Roxana Truța translated this edition from English.