Description
Book SynopsisOn 7 April 1944 a Slovakian Jew, Rudolf Vrba (born Walter Rosenberg), and a fellow prisoner, Alfred Wetzler, succeeded in escaping from Auschwitz-Birkenau. As block registrars both men had been allowed relative (though always risky) freedom of...
Trade ReviewLinn reawakens the most painful issue that has agitated the Jewish community since the Holocaust: did Jewish organizations (Judenrat) abet the Nazis in killing their own people? The book is well documented and argued. Recommended.
* Choice *
When Rudolf Verba escaped from the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in April 1944, he did so not only to save his and co-escapee Alfred Wetzler's life, he did so also to warn the more than half a million Hungarian Jews of their impending fate. Knowing perfectly well that it was the secrecy surrounding their actions that allowed the Nazis to herd the unsuspecting Jews and transport them as sheep to slaughter, Verba and Wetzler—as soon as they got in touch with Jewish community representatives in their native Slovakia—compiled a detailed report. They wrote what Auschwitz was all about and what awaited the Hungarian Jews once they got there: immediate death by gassing. Just as they were reading the Auschwitz Protocol—as the Vrba-Wetzler report would be known as The Hungarian Jewish leaders were involved in delicate negotiations with high ranking SS officer Adolf Eichmann. On surface, they were trying to get a deal that would allow them, their families and their friends to leave Hungary unscathed, with most of their worldly possessions in tow, and in exchange, the Nazis would get trucks and other such material from the Allies. Some of the Hungarian Jewish leaders would later acknowledge that both sides described the talks as 'blood for trucks'. Escaping Auschwitz should explode like a multi-megaton bomb among scientists in general and historians in particular, not only in Israel, but all over the world. And it should alarm nonscientific readers, as well, so they start asking uncomfortable questions about people who write their history for them, and how. Neither the story of the Auschwitz Protocols nor the writings of Rudolf Vrba have ever been made part of any school curricula in Israel, and neither the Auschwitz Protocols or Rudolf Vrba's writings have been published in Hebrew in Israel until the end of the last century, more than a half of a century after the fact. Ruth Linn's Escaping Auschwitz reads like a novel. It must have taken a lot of persistence and courage on her part to break through the establishment barriers, but she did it. And it took a lot of integrity on the part of Cornell University Press to publish this book. It deals with a most unpleasant topic, but it is one that must see the light of day. Escaping Auschwitz should be a must-have book in every school's and academic establishment's library, all over the world.
* The Jerusalem Post *
