The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland
This is an amazing story of escape from Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland in 1944
Two young Jewish men succeeded in what was considered to be an impossible mission, no-one had ever successfully escaped before.
Fred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba hid in a hole in the ground for 3 days, then crawled under electrified fences, past armed watchtowers to evade the thousands of SS men and their dogs who were hunting them.
They traversed 75 miles of harsh terrain to alert the world and the Jews of Europe of the fate awaiting them.
Fred and Rudolf were aware of the plan for 470.000 Hungarian Jews to be transported by train to Auschwitz and were hoping that when the allies discovered what was happening, then at least the railway lines to the camp would be bombed.
Vrba had become an eyewitness to every stage of the Nazi’s process of industrialised murder and so he had committed each detail to memory. The 32 pages of details which ensued, documented every procedure in the death camp. This report eventually reached Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt and the Pope.
It all turned out so differently, 470.000 Jews could have possibly been saved from a shocking end.
Submitted by Vivienne
