Die Theresienstädter Herbsttransporte 1944 [ The Transports from Theresienstadt in Autumn 1944] (in German). 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. Incredibly, Freedland actually does include this man, Siegfried Lederer, and even mentions that Lederer warned the Jews about the camp . Growing up in Slovakia, surviving the camps working in many positions, escaping, then informing the world are all covered in good detail. At the end of it, Slovakian partisans and citizens helped the two escapees with new identities and hiding places.

Explaining the reaction to the possibility of imminent death, Israeli historian and survivor Jakov Tsur stated that no one was capable of understanding Auschwitz until he or she had arrived and was undergoing selection. Although he quickly developed a reputation for trading contraband, [12] he was disgusted by the mass killings at Auschwitz and by the contempt of some German SS members for Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans from outside Germany), [11] who comprised the majority of Auschwitz guards. Jonathan Freedland’s conclusion that Rudolf Vrba deserves to ‘stand alongside Anne Frank, Oskar Schindler and Primo Levi in the first rank of stories that define the Shoah,’ is hard to argue with,” said Moffat. One survivor described Pestek as "a decent person who never beat inmates" and Yehuda Bacon said he was "more humane" than other SS guards.His description of the escape and his subsequent journewy as a fugitive to the east, through the Carpathian mountains into the Ukraine, is unforgettable reading. Part of my fascination with this period in time is simply down to the fact that I really cannot grasp how something so truly awful was ever allowed to happen. Lederer later claimed that he had maintained contact with the Plzeňák 28 while at Theresienstadt, but survivors of that group testified that they had heard nothing from him until his escape.

How this Russian man was able to survive a Nazi Death Camp was beyond extraordinary and to stay sane among such treachery and cruelty is amazing. Evading the thousands of SS men hunting them, Vrba and Wetzler made the perilous journey on foot across Nazi-occupied Poland. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.I have read many books and never get tired to read how those not selected to the gas chamber managed to survive and how strong they were to be able to accomplish the tasks imposed on them and keep their sanity…although some couldn’t and committed suicide.

Great book describing the horror of Auschwitz camp and the extremes that the Nazi's went to with their cruelty towards other human beings. Jews transported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz between September 1943 and May 1944 were housed in a separate block at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, known as the Theresienstadt family camp.Langbein evaluates Pestek's actions more favorably than those of the guards who helped inmates escape during the evacuation of the camp in January 1945 in hopes of avoiding punishment for their crimes. No, I don't believe Freedland was purposefully disrespectful nor that there was ill intentions either. He told Pestek he was wealthy and that his contacts in the underground would help Pestek and Neumann. Walter Rosenberg, an 18-year-old Slovak Jew enlisted in the commando charged with unloading the trains, figured it out. When internment loomed he bolted to Hungary but was arrested; then he escaped from a transit camp and was arrested again.