The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World

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Lederer said Pestek had left some valuables with a Polish girlfriend in Myslowitz and that she reported him when he tried to retrieve them.

It’s the first time I’ve read anything of that period written from a Russian’s point of view who ended up in the camps along with others who had been captured.He used this information to help him escape, but it’s primary use was to create a detailed report that could be shared with the world once he escaped. The turning point arrives when Vrba, with his scientific mind that comprehended strategies and patterns, understood the orchestrated Nazi deception of resettlement (or “disinformation” as we would say today).

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. And whereas younger Jews believed Vrba, the majority were with philosopher Raymond Aron, who said: “I knew but I didn’t believe it. According to Lederer, he joined the Association of Friends of the Soviet Union, was influenced by Communist leader Marie Škardová, [note 1] helped those living in hiding, and distributed illegal publications. Vrba never shied away from such controversies and sometimes alienated Jewish audiences, according to Freedland, by refusing to “serve up a morally comfortable narrative in which the only villains were the Nazis”. In a market full of WWII testimonials this is unusual since it is written by a Russian from the perspective of a Soviet.According to Kárný, Pestek had overstayed his leave and was suspected of having helped Lederer escape, and therefore success was impossible under the circumstances. but continues to ignore what he's just written and insists for the rest of the book that Vrba is the first Jew to escape from Auschwitz alive to warn the Jews and the world about Auschwitz. Andrey’s story is of course remarkable not only because he survived when so many others didn’t, but he escaped custody on at least 3 occasions on his ultimate journey to freedom. This will leave you inspired in a way you’ve never before felt as such through discovering the mission of a man brutalised beyond all belief, carried forward only by a will and ambition to share the horrors of Auschwitz to the outside world in the veiled hope of saving the lives of thousands more of his people.