The Escape Artist

The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World

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The Escape Artist

By: Jonathan Freedland

Narrated by: Jonathan Freedland

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The astonishing, forgotten story of the hero who escaped from Auschwitz to reveal the truth of the Holocaust.

In April 1944 a teenager named Rudolf Vrba was planning a daring and unprecedented escape from Auschwitz. After hiding in a pile of timber planks for three days while 3,000 SS men and their bloodhounds searched for him, Vrba and his fellow escapee Fred Wetzler would eventually cross Nazi-occupied Poland on foot, as penniless fugitives. Their mission: to tell the world the truth of the Final Solution.

Vrba would produce from memory a breathtaking report of more than thirty pages revealing the true nature and scale of Auschwitz - a report that would find its way to Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope, eventually saving over 200,000 Jewish lives.

A thrilling history with enormous historical implications, THE ESCAPE ARTIST is the extraordinary story of a complex man who would seek escape again and again: first from Auschwitz, then from his past, even from his own name. In telling his story, Jonathan Freedland - the journalist, broadcaster and acclaimed, multi-million copy selling author of the Sam Bourne novels - ensures that Rudolf Vrba's heroic mission will also escape oblivion.

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited©2022 Jonathan Freedland

Jonathan FreedlandJonathan FreedlandJohn Murray

20th Century

Military

Modern

Heartfelt

Inspiring

Scary

Thought-Provoking

War

Holocaust

20th Century Military Modern Heartfelt Inspiring Scary Thought-Provoking War Holocaust

Critic Reviews

Excellent . . . thrilling . . . Freedland's book is rich in the kind of details that haunt you long after you have turned the last page (Sunday Times)

A brilliant and heart-wrenching book, with universal and timely lessons about the power of information - and misinformation (Yuval Noah Harari)

A magnificent book. I could scarcely breathe at some points. What a tribute to its extraordinary hero, and it's such an important and necessary story to read . . . I can't praise it too highly. What an achievement (Philip Pullman)

An immediate classic of Holocaust literature. Superbly researched and written, it is both a gripping story and deeply moving, I literally could not put it down (Antony Beevor)

Immersive, shattering, and, ultimately redemptive . . . An epic of terror and endurance . . . Written with Freedland's page-turning, gripping, hard-edged immediacy, The Escape Artist is profound in thought, boundless in humanity, an immediate modern classic (Simon Schama)

Awe-inspiring, exciting and poignant, this is a thrilling read, a piece of redemptive storytelling and a work of important Holocaust historical research: Freedland has given Rudolf Vrba his rightful place in history - and in the process written a book that I couldn't put down (Simon Sebag Montefiore)

The Escape Artist is marvellous. It is original, meticulous and utterly compelling - and ultimately a deeply tragic tale (Philippe Sands)

A must-read stand-out piece of history . . . This is Freedland at his finest . . . It is both a celebration of the extraordinary will, courage and resilience of the hero - Rudi Vrba - and an all too prescient warning of how hard it is to wake up the world to things it would prefer not to see (Emily Maitlis)

A work of the highest quality about an astonishing man. It is gripping from start to finish, searingly, shocking, revelatory and deeply moving - the more so because there is no false note, no striving for effect. The research is prodigious and the complexities deftly woven into the narrative . . . A profoundly troubling and important work (Jonathan Dimbleby)

A masterpiece of page-turning history: an escape story that is also a fearless exploration of some of the most profound questions that face humanity. Rudolf Vrba's extraordinary testimony will deepen your understanding of the Holocaust - and compel you to think afresh about our own times, and the role of truth, denial and fragile memory. Magisterial (Matthew d'Ancona)

The story of Vrba's escape from Auschwitz, exquisitely told by Jonathan Freedland, soars like a thriller. Exhilarating, deeply moving and historically important (Simon Parkin)

Powerful, important, compelling and superbly told. This is a book that needs to be read (Bart van Es, bestselling author of The Cut Out Girl)

An indispensable, unflinching, bone-hard book. Compelling reading (Howard Jacobson)

Most relevant

Eye opening, heart wrenching telling account of the horror of life in Auschwitz by escapee Rudolf Vrba.
I could not stop listening. I had no idea how long authorities/Prime Ministers/The Pope (god damn it) knew, the incredible mind and memory of Rudolf to remember in detail all that he witnessed. Thank you Mr Freedland, much respect.