“It was my good fortune” are the opening words of Primo Levi’s memoir If This Is a Man, and good fortune is the chief reason Levi gave for his survival in Auschwitz. Other factors helped too: fitness, intelligence, adaptability, usefulness about the camp, sturdy footwear. But at crucial moments he and other survivors were saved by luck.
Rudolf Vrba didn’t just survive Auschwitz, he escaped from it – he and his companion Fred Wetzler were the first Jews to do so. Vrba was 19. The story of how he got away is astonishing and what happened as a result (or failed to happen) is an indispensable part of Holocaust history. But when Vrba died in 2006, only a handful of people attended his funeral and a mere 40 were there for his memorial service nine months later. Jonathan Freedland’s gripping book sets out to bring him to prominence as a name to rank with Levi, Anne Frank and Oskar Schindler.
