Rudolf Vrba was an escape artist whose achievement ranks among the very greatest of the century. By escaping from Auschwitz, he did what no Jew had ever done before – and then he told the world what he had seen. And though he never escaped Auschwitz’s shadow, he lived a life in full, as a man in full. He became a scientist and a scholar, a husband, a father and a grandfather. He had helped the world, and history, know the truth of the Holocaust. And, thanks to him, tens of thousands of others went on to live lives that were long and rich, as did their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren – so many, even he could not count them all.
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Acknowledgements
A book like this would be impossible without the kindness of others. First thanks go to Robin Vrba, who over many patient hours let me into the life she had shared with Rudi, digging out yellowing papers and faded photographs, answering an endless stream of questions and mining a rich store of memories. No less generous was Rudolf Vrba’s first wife and childhood sweetheart, Gerta Vrbová, who sat with me in the final weeks of her life recalling a world that had long vanished – eventually handing me a suitcase packed with her ex-husband’s letters, many of which touched on unimaginably painful experiences. I am also grateful to Gerta’s daughter Caroline, her son Peter and grandson Jack, as well as to Rudi’s friends and colleagues in Vancouver – among them, Chris Friedrichs, Robert Krell and Joseph Ragaz – for sharing their own recollections of this extraordinary man.
A legion of scholars were generous with their expertise, starting with Nikola Zimring who steered me through several of the most elusive aspects of the Vrba–Wetzler story. Yehuda Bauer, Paul Bogdanor, Ruth Linn, Deborah Lipstadt and Nikolaus Wachsmann, as well as a former member of the Hungarian underground, David Gur, all helped enormously, as did Peter Klein, son of Georg, and Richard Bestic, son of Alan. Tim Radford agreed to serve as interpreter of Rudi’s scientific writings and did it with his trademark clarity. I want to offer particular thanks to Karen Pollock of the Holocaust Educational Trust. She and the organisation she heads do invaluable work and she gave me one lead in particular which proved essential as I set out on this journey. A portion of the proceeds of this book will be going to the trust.
Beyond those conversations with historians and the guidance of Rudi’s family and colleagues, this book is based on testimonies from survivors of the Holocaust, documents recording the events of that period and, above all, the words of Rudolf Vrba himself. He left behind not only a memoir, but also a copious personal archive of letters and writings, all held at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in New York. I’d like to thank Kirsten Carter and her team for their help in making that archive accessible, even in the age of Covid.
Thanks are due to Szymon Kowalski and Teresa Wontor-Cichy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum for answering so many of my questions, as well as to the team at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and to Allen Packwood of the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. I am grateful to Gordon Brown for making that latter connection and indeed for his encouragement of this project.
I am indebted to Marcelina Tomza-Michalska for acting as my guide and interpreter in Poland and to Jarka ?imonová for playing the same role in Slovakia. Further thanks go to Peter ?vec, for fielding my enquiries as we walked a stretch of the annual Vrba–Wetzler march, retracing the escape route, a commemoration that exists thanks in part to the inspiration of Rudi’s late daughter Zuza.
At John Murray, I could not have been in better hands than those of my editor Joe Zigmond: he and Jocasta Hamilton have managed to be simultaneously enthusiastic and wise, backed by the meticulous care and professionalism of Caroline Westmore and by the copy-editing vigilance of Peter James. In the US, thanks go to the reassuringly shrewd Sara Nelson and Kris Dahl. Whether in London or New York, all of them grasped the significance of this story when they had little to go on but my conviction that it needed to be told.
The Curtis Brown team went far beyond the call of duty, with Viola Hayden proving an especially canny reader while Kate Cooper and Nadia Mokdad have worked wonders taking this story to the wider world. Out in front, as always, has been Jonny Geller – not only the best agent any writer could ask for, but a true and loyal friend over four decades. It was a walk in the woods with him that set this book in motion: it would not have happened without him.
Once again, I am glad to thank Jonathan Cummings for his exhaustive （and no doubt exhausting） work researching this project, chasing down every last detail. He plunged deep into the history with me, at my side as we burrowed into the archives, trudged through the forests of Slovakia and walked among ghosts in Auschwitz. I am deeply grateful.
Finally, I say thank you to my wife Sarah and my sons Jacob and Sam. This subject is not a light one to carry around. That I have been able to do so is down to their patience, their humour and their love. I appreciate them more with each passing year.
Jonathan Freedland
London, March 2022
Picture Credits
Alamy Stock Photo: 7 below/Keystone Press. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Archive: 3 above/photo Stanislaw Kolowca 1945, 3 below, 4, 7 centre right. ? bpk Bildagentur: 7 above left. FDR Presidential Library & Museum: 5 below. Courtesy of Caroline Hilton: 6 centre right. National Archives, Kew, UK: 5 above/PREM 4/51/10. Private Collection courtesy of Hans Citroen: 2 below. Sovfoto/Universal Images Group/Shutterstock: 1 below. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Yad Vashem: 2 above/Public Domain, 8 above/Created by Claude Lanzmann during the filming of Shoah used by permission of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem – The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, Jerusalem. Courtesy of Robin Vrba: 1 above, 6 above left and below, 8 below.
Notes
Abbreviations
APMAB: Archiwum Państwowego Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau （Archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum）， O? wi? cim
CZA: Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem
FDRPL: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York
JTA: Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NA: Národní archiv, Prague
USHMM: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
YVA: Yad Vashem Archive, Jerusalem
Prologue
‘Bon voyage’ : Wetzler, Escape , p. 108.
sprinkled : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 37.
phosphorescent : Wetzler, Escape , p. 111.
take his hand and squeeze it : Ibid., p. 108.
would not let themselves be interrogated : Ibid.
side by side : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 38.
at last the waiting was over : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 271.
strip of flannel : Wetzler, Escape , p. 124.
200 of them : Gilbert, Auschwitz , p. 196.
search every ridge : Wetzler, Escape , p. 125.
their panting audible : Ibid., p. 124.
the SS and their henchmen : Wetzler, Escape , pp. 134–5.
‘Stupid bastards !’ : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 274.
several pounds of bread : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 247.
margarine : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 36.
bottle filled with cold coffee : Ibid., p. 38.
frosty morning mist : Wetzler, Escape , p. 134.
feeling in his fingers : Ibid., p. 130.
‘They can’t have got away’ : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 275.