The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland: Shocking, deeply moving account of surviving Auschwitz

Rudolf Vrba, the eponymous escape artist, was one of the two first Jews to escape from Auschwitz. This account of his life, based on official documents, testimonies, memoirs, letters, contemporary reports and historical accounts, is gripping, compelling, shocking and deeply moving.

Vrba’s first attempted escape, aged 17, was from his native eastern Slovakia to avoid being deported to Poland and hoping to get to London. Arrested and put in a transit camp, he escaped from that, only to be recaptured and deported to Majdanek concentration camp. Crowded cold barracks, with few beds, no sanitation, widespread dysentery, little food or water, back-breaking labour — these were camp conditions.

When 400 men were requested to volunteer for “farm work”, Vrba leaped at the chance but the “farm” they were taken to was Auschwitz. There he was branded “44070″. He knew staying fit and strong was essential, death being the alternative. Auschwitz has been described by many — some of whom were there and some of whom weren’t — but this account reaches for words such as “deranged” and “surreal” to try to describe the almost indescribable. The 18-year-old’s realisation that Auschwitz wasn’t merely a labour camp but “a factory of death” is superbly revealed.

He was determined to escape to warn Jews of their fate if taken there and to tell the world what was happening. The meticulous preparations for the escape are detailed, as is the hair-raising process (with many near-misses) itself. Incredibly, Vrba and his comrade, Fred Wetzler, made it to Slovakia, where they revealed the truth of Auschwitz. How the “Auschwitz Report” eventually reached journalist Walter Garrett, was first widely publicised in Switzerland and then reached the US and British governments, makes fascinating reading, just as those governments’ food-dragging over taking action is sad and frustrating. How the report saved the lives of the 200,000 Jews of Budapest is a convoluted story — but it did.

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Vrba finished the war fighting with Czech partisans, studied chemistry, married and divorced, fled communist Prague for London and from there to Canada and the US, and a second marriage. He became deeply involved in the prosecution of war criminals and led a full life despite experiencing further tragedy. His life might have been defined by what he had endured as a teenager, “but he was not crushed by it”.