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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
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Reviews
<br>An utterly gripping narrative, incorporating a restrained though harrowing picture of life in Auschwitz and a kind of heroic adventure story
<br>Such an important piece of history . . . This dramatic, compelling and deeply sensitive account raises issues around courage, agency and the credibility of facts that still resonate today
<br>This really is an extraordinary book
<br>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
<br>Immersive, shattering, and, ultimately redemptive book . . . 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
<br>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
<br>The Escape Artist is marvellous. It is original, meticulous and utterly compelling - and ultimately a deeply tragic tale
<br>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
<br>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
<br>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
<br>The story of Vrba's escape from Auschwitz, exquisitely told by Jonathan Freedland, soars like a thriller. Exhilarating, deeply moving, and historically important
<br>Powerful, important, compelling and superbly told. This is a book that needs to be read
<br>An indispensable, unflinching, bone-hard book. Compelling reading
<br>Brilliant
<br>A brilliant and heart-wrenching book, with universal and timely lessons about the power of information - and misinformation
<br>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
<br>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
Excellent . . . thrilling . . . Freedland's book is rich in the kind of details that haunt you long after you have turned the last page
<br>Meticulously researched . . . shocking but thrilling, and ultimately overwhelmingly inspiring
<br>Astonishing . . . An indispensable part of Holocaust history . . . Gripping