The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World
by Jonathan Freedland
Award-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Jonathan Freedland tells the astonishing story of Rudolf Vrba, the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world of a truth too few were willing to hear.
In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba became one of the very first Jews to escape from Auschwitz and make his way to freedom — among only a tiny handful who ever pulled off that near-impossible feat. 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. Against all odds, Vrba and his fellow escapee, Fred Wetzler, climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and narrowly missed German bullets until they had smuggled out the first full account of Auschwitz the world had ever seen — a forensically detailed report that eventually reached Franklin Roosevelt, Winston
Churchill, and the Pope.
And yet too few heeded the warning that Vrba had risked everything to deliver. Though Vrba helped save two hundred thousand Jewish lives, he never stopped believing it could have been so many more.
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