The Escape Artist cover art

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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About this listen

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.

©2022 Jonathan Freedland (P)2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited 20th Century Military Modern Scary Thought-Provoking War Holocaust

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All stars
Most relevant
The story told should be heard by everyone. And the way Jonny Freedland crafted this story of stories is remarkable. Thanks.

Incredible

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This is one of those life stories which, even when you try to describe it to someone else, cannot be believed or grasped until the individual has read and experienced it for themselves. (And believe me, I've tried.) Ironically, that's one of the themes that appears over and over again throughout the book. Don't be put off by thinking this is just a daring-do escape story; the escape itself actually forms only about a fifth of the book.

It is clearly Freedland's opus and I find it hard to imagine how it could have been better researched. His prose manages to be both detailed and sparce at the same time, but with a poetry that lifts the facts with an emotion appropriate to their social and historical context. One can see that his description of Robyn, for instance, was painstakingly crafted. I suspect it's one of those books that is even better hearing via narration.

Recommended for anyone, but especially those interested in courage, perseverance, standing up for injustice but also Christians thinking about evangelism. Hopefully it won't be long before it's on the reading list of secondary schools as a follow on from Anne Frank. Congratulations to Mr Freedland on an excellent book and I'm looking forward to seeing what else he produces.

One of those books everyone should read

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An astonishing account of an under appreciated episode in the holocaust, which through the life of one extraordinary individual sheds light on the whole sequence of events. Very well read by the author Jonathan Freedland.

Astonishing

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A book separated into different parts from Rudolph’s childhood in Slovakia to his final years in Vancouver. His remarkable escape is one of the shorter parts. What emerges is a man of unique qualities, but who also had a remarkable degree of good fortune at crucial moments in his life. His driving force was that the world should know what was happening in Auschwitz. The story of his life and escape is a powerful addition to that story.

A remarkable man

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Achingly sad and yet very engaging. A fascinating story which has been very well written and read.

Riveting

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