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The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World
by Jonathan Freedland
Award-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Jonathan Freedland tells the incredible story of Rudolf Vrba - the first Jew to break out of Auschwitz, a man determined to warn the world and pass on a truth too few were willing to hear - elevating him to his rightful place in the annals of World War II alongside Anne Frank, Primo Levi, and Oskar Schindler and casting a new light on the Holocaust and its aftermath.
A complex hero.
A forgotten story.
The first witness to reveal the full truth of the Holocaust
People won't believe what they can't imagine...
In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba became the first Jew to break out of Auschwitz—one of only four 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 at the end of the railway line. Against all odds, he 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 would eventually reach Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and the Pope.
And yet too few heeded the warning that Vrba—then just nineteen years old—had risked everything to deliver. Some could not believe it. Others thought it easier to keep quiet. Vrba helped save 200,000 Jewish lives—but he never stopped believing it could have been so many more.
This is the story of a brilliant yet troubled man—a gifted "escape artist" who even as a teenager understand that the difference between truth and lies can be the difference between life and death, a man who deserves to take his place alongside Anne Frank, Oskar Schindler and Primo Levi as one of the handful of individuals whose stories define our understanding of the Holocaust.
"A first-rate account of one of the few Jewish prisoners who escaped Auschwitz. Concentration camp stories make for painful reading, but British journalist and broadcaster Freedland relates a riveting tale with a fascinating protagonist...A powerful story of a true hero who deserves more recognition." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Drawing on interviews with family members and former colleagues, Freedland presents a warts-and-all portrait of Vrba, and vividly captures the horrors of Auschwitz. The result is a noteworthy contribution to the history of the Holocaust." - Publishers Weekly
"Freedland, a journalist who also writes thrillers under the pseudonym Sam Bourne, is the perfect person to tell Rosenberg's story: he's got a journalist's eye for precise detail and a novelist's sense of pacing and suspense. Like Neal Bascomb's The Escape Artists (2018) and Margalit Fox's The Confidence Men (2021), this spellbinding book tells the kind of true story that, if it were the basis of a work of fiction, might be considered unbelievable." - Booklist
"A brilliant and heart-wrenching book, with universal and timely lessons about the power of information - and misinformation. Is it possible to stop mass murder by telling the truth?" - Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
"I thought I knew the Auschwitz story, but Freedland retells it from a fresh angle so powerfully that I read it with my heart beating fast, full of horror, rage, despair – and admiration for this potent demonstration of the stubborn resilience of the human spirit." - Tracy Chevalier, bestselling author of The Girl with the Pearl Earring
"Rudolf Vrba's life story not only meticulously recounts the truth, it also shows the unwillingness and inability of people to accept it. The past isn't over, and Jonathan Freedland's well-researched and compelling book is the irrefutable proof of that." - Roxane van Iperen, author of the New York Times bestselling The Sisters of Auschwitz
This information about The Escape Artist was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Journalist and broadcaster Jonathan Freedland is a weekly columnist for the Guardian, where he edits the paper's op-ed pages and chairs its Editorial Board. He was previously the Guardian's Washington correspondent. In 2014 he won the George Orwell Prize for Journalism. He lives in London with his wife and their two children.
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