Jonathan Freedland’s The Escape Artist tells the remarkable story of Rudolf Vrba, a 19-year-old prisoner at Auschwitz who, having been sent to work in “Kanada”, a store housing the luggage taken from new arrivals, began to understand the truth of their fate: they were there not to be resettled but to be murdered. Galvanised by this knowledge, he set himself a mission: to “escape and sound the alarm”.
Vrba joined forces with a childhood friend, Fred Wetzler, to create a hiding place under a pile of wood in a lumber yard in the camp’s outer compound. Having plugged the gaps with petrol-soaked tobacco to prevent guard dogs from picking up their scent, the pair hid there for three days and nights listening to the search operation. Once the hunt had been called off, they crept out from beneath the wood and made their escape.
