fifty-one horses : Information display at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
with a single blow : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 203.
iron bar : Ibid., p. 199.
80 per cent of them, Poles : Kulka, ‘Attempts’， p. 295.
lived like aristocrats : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 200.
adulterated bread : Cesarani, Final Solution , p. 527.
fellow prisoners were starving : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 201.
queuing politely for the Auschwitz butcher : Ibid., p. 200.
anti-Nazi mafia : Vrba, Lanzmann interview, p. 38.
some 400 prisoners : Ibid., p. 39.
orderly concentration camp : Ibid., p. 40.
machinery of mass annihilation : Ibid., p. 43.
Chapter 12: ‘It Has Been Wonderful’
Only recently : Kulka, ‘Attempts’， p. 295.
300 or 400 dead bodies : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1321.
lost three brothers : Ibid.
a breast pocket : Langbein, People , p. 71.
every new arrival’s first stop : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1357.
forty or fifty yards away : Ibid., p. 1348.
the whole barracks shaking : Ibid., pp. 1348–9.
watching the people : Ibid., pp. 1472–3.
first-hand information : Deposition by Rudolf Vrba for submission at the trial of Adolf Eichmann, 16 July 1961, FDRPL, Vrba collection, box 10; Gilbert, Auschwitz , p. 194.
the chief registrar : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 202.
soiling themselves : Cesarani, Final Solution , p. 528.
defecating in the same bowls : Ibid., p. 660.
‘Ode to Joy’ : Interview with Otto Dov Kulka in Freedland, ‘Every One’， Guardian , 7 March 2014.
Alicia Munk : In Rudolf’s memoir, which tends to use anglicised versions of names, she is ‘Alice’。 Gerta Vrbová told the author that her name was, in fact, Alicia.
the permanent staff : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 216.
‘It has been wonderful’ : Ibid., p. 227.
rushing towards the door : Müller, Eyewitness , p. 109.
only sixty-seven : Gilbert, Auschwitz , p. 235 n. 1.
eleven pairs of twins : Vrba–Wetzler Report , p. 16.
Chapter 13: Escape Was Lunacy
wearing two shirts : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1441.
came up with the idea : Kulka, ‘Attempts’， p. 297.
Three cheers, we’ve come back again! : Müller, Eyewitness , pp. 55–6.
‘if you try to escape’ : Kulka, ‘Attempts’， p. 298.
aged thirty-three : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 243.
brown leather belt : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 248.
a pair of spades : Ibid., p. 252.
in order of seniority : Ibid.
inscribed in ink : Rudolf Vrba gave the belt to the Imperial War Museum, London, in 1999. It is catalogued as item EPH 2722.
escape more feasible : Kulka, ‘Attempts’， p. 295.
one Nazi for every fourteen inmates : Ibid.
public relations stunt : Vrba to Martin Gilbert, 12 August 1980, FDRPL, Vrba collection, box 2.
the Beskyds : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1319.
sequence of settlements : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 246.
Chapter 14: Russian Lessons
15 January 1944 : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 246.
‘What a pleasant surprise’ : Ibid., pp. 238–9.
‘Hungarian salami’ : Ibid., p. 240.
crash course in escapology : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 238.
‘Don’t let them take you alive’ : Ibid., p. 239.
network of informers : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 245.
would be murdered : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1345.
‘I’ve killed enough of them’ : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 238.
soaked in petrol and then dried : Ibid., p. 239.
who trusted him : Author interview with Gerta Vrbová, 15 June 2020.
only two were still alive : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 244.
his closest friend : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1321.
Birkenau II Sub-section D : Kulka, ‘Five Escapes’， p. 205.
yard of Crematorium II : Vrba, Testimony, pp. 1327–8.
he felt lonely : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 35.
whispered to each other of escape : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1321.
through a sewer : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 35.
‘inexperience, personal volatility and impulsiveness’ : Gilbert, Auschwitz , p. 193.
hour by hour : Ibid., p. 194.
they were still free : Ibid., p. 193.
Chapter 15: The Hideout
without warning : Kulka, ‘Attempts’， p. 296.
Hence: Mexico : Müller, Eyewitness , p. 179.
doubly condemned : Kulka, ‘Attempts’， p. 299.
door frames : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 36.
Alexander ‘Sándor’ Eisenbach : Kulka, ‘Attempts’， p. 299.
a dozen times : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 262.
searched and interrogated : Kulka, ‘Attempts’， p. 299.
gold, another said it was diamonds : Gold, according to ibid.; diamonds, according to Vrba, I Escaped , p. 263.
wholly bogus place of escape : Kulka, ‘Attempts’， p. 299.
Chapter 16: Let My People Go
in their heads : see the note for ‘details large and small’ in Chapter 28.
prosperous Dutch gentleman : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 267.
high leather boots : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 248.
Bolek and Adamek : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 37.
his hair was too long : Ibid.
Lederer stepped out and got on the bicycle : Kulka, ‘Five Escapes’， p. 201.
the password ‘Inkwell’ : Ibid., p. 202.
comrades for resistance : Siegfried Lederer saw out the war fighting with anti-Nazi partisans, and lived in Czechoslovakia until his death on 5 April 1972, twenty-eight years to the day after he walked out of Auschwitz. He died in obscurity, unheralded for both his extraordinary escape and his attempt to warn the Jews of Theresienstadt.
‘What have we got here?’ : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 267.
prisoner have a watch : Ibid.
a foreman : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1365.
‘You old swine, how are you?’ : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 269.
‘Here, have a Greek cigarette’ : Ibid.
come in from Athens : ‘On April 1st, 1944, a transport of Greek Jews arrived. 200 of them came to the camp and the rest, approximately 1500, were gassed immediately.’ Report of a prisoner who escaped from Auschwitz, 28 July 1944, CZA A314/18.
seven or eight layers : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1366.
‘Bon voyage’ : Wetzler, Escape , p. 108.
It was 2 p.m. : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1368.
the night of the Seder : Dole?al, Cesty Bo?ím , p. 109. Vrba told his interviewer that he did not know 7 April 1944 had been Seder night until exactly fifty years later, when he gave a lecture to mark the anniversary of his escape.
Chapter 17: Underground
martial music : Wetzler, Escape , p. 114.
short distance north-east : The precise location of the hiding place in BIII, or Mexico, is not clear. In one account, Vrba placed it ‘300 meters [sic ] east from Crematorium V’ （see Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 246）。 But given other details in Vrba and Wetzler’s testimony, it is likely that that distance was somewhat greater, putting the hideout in the far north-eastern corner of Mexico.
rattled into the ovens : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 274.
Jews from Belgium : Winik, 1944 , p. 133.
another cheerful ditty : Wetzler, Escape , p. 135.
fierce, tingling pain : Ibid., p. 144.
the moon was shining : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 38.
no snow on the ground : Wetzler, Escape , p. 145.