glistening in the moonlight : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1370.
each foot in the print : Ibid.
kind of clothes peg : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 38.
see the chimneys : Ibid., p. 39.
oil-refinery flames : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1374.
never wanted to see this place again : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 278.
marshy terrain : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1370.
two o’clock in the morning : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 39.
Chapter 18: On the Run
notified by teleprinter : Kárn?, ‘Report’， p. 553.
flat, bureaucratic idiom : Telegram reproduced in Kulka, ‘Five Escapes’， p. 205.
identifiably Jewish names : The August 1938 Second Implementation Ordinance of the Law on Changing First and Family Names also listed ninety-one female names. See Nick, Personal Names, Hitler and the Holocaust , p. 65.
social vacuum : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 245.
not even talked of their route : Ibid.
no documents, no map and no compass : Gilbert, Auschwitz , p. 196.
heard the Auschwitz gong : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 39.
SS men walked close by : Ibid.
ethnic German settlers : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 247.
drink from a stream : Ibid.
electric lights and watchtowers : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 39.
chess : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 280.
‘Papa, Papa’ : Ibid.
kilo of sugar : Flaws, Polish Complicity , pp. 62–3.
‘Praise be the name’ : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 285.
shoot ‘unidentifiable loiterers’ : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 247; Gilbert, Auschwitz , p. 196.
German agents provocateurs : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 247.
shuttered their windows : Ibid., p. 248.
half a loaf of bread : Ibid.
barrage balloons : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 39.
fat, grey and sullen : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 287.
broken branch or dislodged stone : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 39.
Chapter 19: Crossing the Border
German soldiers : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 248.
Uniformed Germans : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 39.
‘We’ve got him!’ : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 288.
their overcoats : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 248.
past fires : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 39.
‘From Auschwitz’ : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 289.
worn hands : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 40.
little goat-hut : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 248.
the blanket she had with her : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 40.
burst into tears : Ibid.
carrying a gun : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 291.
‘You’re from a concentration camp’ : Ibid.
tears in her eyes : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 40.
new boots : Ibid., p. 41.
crossing the railway tracks : Ibid., p. 40.
Tadeusz : Ibid. Rudolf Vrba’s memoir gives no name for their guide to the Slovak border and no indication that he was a veteran of Auschwitz.
‘That’s Slovakia’ : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 293.
house number 264 : Wetzler, 1963 testimony, p. 40.
‘The living hillsman from Milówka’ : Wetzler, Escape , p. 179.
a Jew or a human being : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 295.
Pollack paled : Vrba, Lanzmann interview, p. 53.
began to tremble : Vrba to Martin Gilbert, 30 July 1980, FDRPL, Vrba collection, box 2.
‘The rest are dead’ : Vrba, Lanzmann interview, p. 53.
relative of Leo Baeck : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 251.
bandages on his feet : Vrba to Martin Gilbert, 30 July 1980, FDRPL, Vrba collection, box 2.
the railway station : Vrba, Lanzmann interview, p. 54.
salami, eggs, salad : Wetzler, Escape , p. 192.
act as typist : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 251.
Chapter 20: In Black and White
Krasňansk? wangled a permit : Gilbert, Auschwitz , p. 203.
twenty-four hours later : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 251.
name and photograph : Vrba, Lanzmann interview, p. 56.
completely exhausted : Karmil/Krasň ansk?, Kulka interview, p. 4.
a thing of wonder : Krasň ansk?, ‘Declaration’， p. 1.
every pore of his skin : Wetzler, Escape , p. 193.
locked : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 251; Krasň ansk?, ‘Declaration’， p. 1.
two weeks : Karmil/Krasň ansk?, Kulka interview, p. 3.
close to his heart : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 251.
cross-examination : Gilbert, Auschwitz , p. 203.
looking for inconsistencies : Wetzler, Escape , p. 201.
bureaucrats : Steiner, Lanzmann interview, pp. 79–81.
fat Jewish lawyers and administrators : Vrba, Lanzmann interview, p. 59.
debated in a fever : Fatran, ‘Working Group’， p. 165.
Why, he wondered : Vrba, Lanzmann interview, p. 57.
rumours : Vrba–Wetzler Report , foreword by Oskar Krasň ansk?, n.p.
from the mouths : Krasň ansk?, ‘Declaration’， p. 1.
an architect : Kulka, ‘Five Escapes’， p. 207.
TOTAL approximately 1,765,000 : Most scholars now believe the likely death toll at Auschwitz-Birkenau was 1.1 million people, 900,000 of them Jews.
the presence of Neumann : Neumann, Im Schatten , pp. 178–82.
No prophecies, no forecasts : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 263.
deemed unfit for inclusion : Miroslav Kárn? is sceptical about this explanation for the absence in the report of any explicit mention of the imminent threat to Hungarian Jewry, noting that the report refers to an apparent rumour about the expected arrival of ‘large transports of Greek Jews’。 If rumours about one community were included, asks Kárn?, why not another? To which an obvious answer is that Fred and Walter had already seen for themselves the arrival of Greek Jews: indeed, they had been the subject of Walter’s very last conversation with an SS man in the camp. Krasň ansk? may well have believed that talk of Greek Jews did not therefore belong in the category of speculation and so could be included, while the danger to Hungary’s Jews could not. Further evidence that Fred and Walter warned of Auschwitz preparations for the mass murder of Hungarian Jewry comes in the form of a letter from two Slovak Jewish leaders spelling out precisely that danger. It was sent on 22 May 1944: after Vrba and Wetzler had told their story in ?ilina but, crucially, before the escape of Mordowicz and Rosin. The information behind that warning could only have come from Fred and Rudi. Kárn?, ‘Report’， p. 560; Vrba to Randolph L. Braham, 17 January 1994, FDRPL, Vrba collection, box 1.
secret meeting : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， pp. 254–5.
‘civilised Germany’ : Ibid., p. 255.
began to shout : Wetzler, Escape , p. 205.
‘Judeo-Bolshevik agitators’ : Vrba, ‘Preparations’， p. 255.
Czech Catholic priest : Trencsényi, Janowski, Baár, Falina and Kope? ek, History , vol. 1, p. 552.
Germanic taint : Vrba, Testimony, p. 1377.
Chapter 21: Men of God
‘They’re passing through ?ilina in cattle trucks’ : Vrba, I Escaped , p. 302.
‘important’ to discuss : Baron, Stopping , p. 181.
Christians of Jewish origin : Baron, ‘Myth’， p. 187.
panic in Jewish circles : Baron, Stopping , p. 184.
She felt it was her duty : Ibid., p. 195.
agonising : Ibid., p. 191.
total and terrible reality : Ibid.
the plight of the Jews : Baron, ‘Myth’， p. 188.