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

Rudi was born as Walter Rosenberg on September 11, 1924, in western Slovakia. He adopted the name Rudolf (Rudi) Vrba after escaping from Auschwitz. He died in 2006. Rudi was a precociously clever child who excelled at reading, mathematics, and languages. He had three half-siblings, one sister (Fanci), and two brothers (Sammy and an unnamed brother). His father, Elias, who owned a local sawmill, died when Walter was four years old (Walter later learned his death was by suicide). To support her family, Walter’s mother, Ilona, became a traveling saleswoman. Walter stayed with his grandparents, who practiced strict Orthodox Judaism. When they could no longer care for him, they sent him to a Jewish orphanage in Bratislava. Walter was initially religious due to his grandparents and the orphanage but became an atheist in his teenage years.

Under Tiso, Rudi was deported as a teenager from his home country and eventually ended up at Auschwitz in 1942. For the next two years, Rudi saw untold horrors. His unprecedented access to almost all aspects of Auschwitz allowed him to piece together the Nazis’ horrifying plan: to mass murder Jewish people. They hid these murders behind a web of lies and deception. Upon this realization, Rudi knew he had to escape Auschwitz to sound the alarm and warn the world and his fellow Jewish people, especially Hungarian Jews. Hungarian Jewish people represented the last Jewish community to fall victim to Hitler’s Final Solution plan. Rudi hoped to arm them with knowledge so that they would revolt rather than obediently boarding the trains to their doom.

Rudi, alongside Fred Wetzler, successfully escaped from Auschwitz in April 1944. They became the first Jewish people to do so. The pair authored the Auschwitz Report (which also became known as the Vrba-Wetzler Report). The report did not have the desired impact. Nazi Germany continued to deport Jewish people, especially from Hungary, to its concentration and death camps. Multiple groups failed the Jewish people, including the Hungarian church leaders, Jewish leadership, and Allied powers. Rudi remained especially angry at the Jewish leadership throughout his life.

Rudi was considered many close to him to be a difficult person, remaining restless for most of his life. Auschwitz left its mark on him, and he could never fully escape its shadows. Yet Rudi also lived a full life (in fact, he loved life). Freedland reinforces the need for people to remember Rudi’s story, emphasizing that Rudi’s bravery saved the lives of at least 200,000 Jewish people and that he should be remembered as a hero of the Holocaust.