Rudolf Vrba

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Rudolf Vrba

Dr. Vrba in 1997

Born

Walter RosenbergSeptember 11, 1924Topo any, Czechoslovakia

Died

March 27, 2006 (aged 81)Vancouver , British Columbia,Canada

Cause of death

Cancer

Ethnicity Jewish

EducationDr. Tech. Sc. in chemistry and biology

Alma mater Prague Technical University

O ccupationAssociate professor of pharmacology

Employer University of British Columbia

Known for

His escape fromAuschwitz, and co-authorship of theVrba-Wetzler report

SpouseGerta Vrbová, Robin Vrba (1975until his death)

Children Dr. Helena Vrbová, Zuza Vrbová



Jackson

ParentsElias Rosenberg, HelenaGrunfeldova

Rudolf "Rudi" Vrba , born Walter Rosenberg (September 11, 1924 ± March 27, 2006) was aSlovak-Canadian professor of pharmacology at the University of British Columbia. He came to public attention in 1944 when, in April that year, he and a friend,Alfréd Wetzler , escaped from theAuschwitz concentration campand passed information to theAlliesabout the mass murder that wastaking place there.[1] The 32 pages of information the men dictated to horrified Jewish officials inSlovakia became known as theVrba-Wetzler report. It was the first detailed information about thecamp to reach the Allies that they accepted as credible.[2]

Details from the report were broadcast on June 15, 1944 by the BBC, and on June 20 byThe NewYork Times , prompting world leaders to appeal to Hungarian regentMiklós Horthyto halt thedeportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, which had been proceeding at a rate of 12,000 a day.After 475,000 had already been deported, the mass deportations were stopped on July 9, 1944,saving up to 200,000 from the gas chambers.

[3][4]

The timing of the report's distribution remains a source of controversy. It was made available toofficials in Hungary and elsewhere before the deportations to Auschwitz had begun, but was notdisseminated further until weeks later.[3] Vrba believed that more lives could have been saved if ithad been publicized sooner, reasoning that, had Hungary's Jews known they were to be killed in thegas chambers²and not resettled, as the Nazis were telling them²they might have chosen to run or fight rather than board the trains.[5][6] He alleged that the report had been withheld deliberately bythe Jewish-HungarianAid and Rescue Committeein order not to jeopardize complex, andultimately futile, negotiations between the committee andAdolf Eichmann, theSS officer in chargeof the deportations, to exchange Jewish lives for money, trucks, and other goods²the so-called" blood for goods" proposals.[5]

Contents

[hide]

y 1 Early life and arrest y 2 Auschwitz

o 2.1 Auschwitz I o 2.2 Auschwitz II (Birkenau)

2.2.1 "Hungarian salami" 2.2.2 Escape

y 3 The Vrba-Wetzler report o 3.1 How the report was distributed o 3.2 Deportations to Auschwitz continue o 3.3 Broadcast of the report and the end of deportations

y 4 After the report o 4.1 Resistance activities o 4.2 After the war o 4.3 Move to Canada o 4.4 Awards and documentaries

y 5 Controversy





Vrba workedin this storage area, nicknamed"Canada," wherethe goods stolen fromthe depor teeswere kept before being sent to Germany.

On June 14, 194 2, Vrba was depor ted to theMa jdanek concentration campin oland, where he br ief ly found one of his brothers.[10] He volunteered for farm work, and on June 30 was sent toAuschwitz I, the main camp of the Auschwitz complex andthe administrative center for the satellitecamps.R ather than the promised "farm work," Vrba's job entailed digging up the bodies of over

100,000 Jews, sothey could beincinerated.[8][11]

He eventually befr iended a Viennese pr isoner who wastrusted bythe SS, and who arranged for himto workin the A uf rä umungskommando , called "Canada" in camp slang.[8] This was a work detail of up to 2,000 men and women who worked onthe J udenrampe ("Jewish ramp") between Auschwitz Iand II that the new arr ivals were unloaded onto, and who sor ted out the possessions taken fromthem, and disposed of the dead bodies amongthem.[12] The Germans made surethat any valuables,including gold, were repackaged and sent to Germany, andthe gold melted intoingots for theR eichsbank.[13] The kommando and its storage facilities, which occupied several dozen barracksinthe BIIg sector of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, were nicknamed"Canada I" and "Canada II" off icially,

E ff ekten l ager I and II ²because they contained clothing, shoes, medicines, blankets, and other provisions, which meant it was viewed as paradise by the olish pr isoners, or Canada, the land of plenty.[14] Because he now had accessto food, soap, and warm clothes, Vrba was able to stayhealthy. He eventually became par t of the pilfer ing hierarchy of the camp guards,though at one point he was beaten for smuggling goodsto fr iends.[8] On January 15, 194 3, he wastransferredagain, along with the rest of the A uf rä umungskommando , to Birkenau, the extermination camp,2½ miles (4 km.) fromthe main camp.[15]

[ed it] Auschw itz II ( Bi rkenau)

"Selection" on the J udenrampe , May/June 1944 . To be sent to the r ight meant assignment to a workdetail; to the lef t, the gas chambers. Vrba worked on this ramp as par t of the A uf rä umungskommando , who sor ted throughthe new arr ivals' belongings.



On arrival at Birkenau, Vrba was "selected" to go to the right rather than the left, which meant hehad been chosen to work rather than be sent to thegas chambers.[16] He was tattooed as prisoner no.44070.[13] He was described by those who knew him as possessing a photographic memory,[12] andduring his time at Auschwitz I and II, he tried to commit to memory the numbers of Jews arrivingand the place of origin of each transport. Because his job involved being present when most of theJewish deportees arrived, and sorting out the belongings of the ones who were gassed, he was able

to calculate how many had been sent to Auschwitz, and how many were killed. He noticed thatmany of them had packed as though for the long term. He saw clothes for different seasons andutensils for a variety of uses, which convinced him that the Jews believed the Nazis' stories aboutresettlement in the East.[17] This strengthened his conviction that he had to escape. For two years hehad thought about it, but now, he wrote, "It was no longer a question of reporting a crime, but of preventing one; of warning the Hungarians, of rousing them, of raising an army one million strong,an army that would fight rather than die."[18]

In the summer of 1943, he was given the job of registrar ( B lockschreiber ) in thequarantinesectionfor men, Birkenau sector BIIa. From his barracks, he could see the lorries driving towards the gaschambers.[16] This allowed him to estimate the number of Jews arriving daily, and the percentagegassed. His estimate was that only 10 percent of each transport was selected to go to the right, andthe rest were killed.[19] By April 1944, he had calculated that 1,750,000 Jews had already beenkilled, a figure significantly higher than those now accepted by mainstream historians,[16] but whicheven decades later he insisted was accurate.[20]

[edit "Hungarian salami"

At the beginning of 1944, Vrba noticed that preparations were underway for a new railway line,which would allow inmates to be taken directly to the gas chambers. He wrote this was confirmedon January 15, 1944 by one of the builders, a Germankapo.[19] He also said he overheard SS guardsdiscuss how they would soon have Hungarian salami by the ton.[9] He wrote: "When a series of transports of Jews from the Netherlands arrived, cheeses enriched the war-time rations. It wassardines when ... French Jews arrived,halva and olives when transports of Jews from Greecereached the camp, and now the SS were talking of 'Hungarian salami'..."[19] Although Vrba is clear in his autobiography that he overheard this conversation, there is no mention of it in the Vrba-Wetzler report,[21] leading Czech historianMiroslav Kárnýto dispute Vrba's recollection (see below).[22]

[edit Escape

When he arrived in Birkenau, Vrba discovered thatAlfréd Wetzler , an older man he had knownfrom his home town, was already there, registered as prisoner no. 29162. Wetzler was working inthe Birkenau mortuary, where he recorded the number of prisoners who died other than by gassing,and the amount of gold extracted from their teeth.[13] The men decided to try to escape together.

With the help of the camp underground, at 2 p.m. on Friday, April 7, 1944²the eve of Passover ² the two men climbed inside a hollowed-out hiding place in a wood pile that was being stored to build the "Mexico" section for the new arrivals. It was outside Birkenau's barbed-wire inner perimeter, but inside an external perimeter the guards kept erected during the day. The other prisoners placed boards around the hollowed-out area to hide the men, then sprinkled the area with pungent Russian tobacco soaked in gasoline to fool the guards' dogs, a trick they had learned fromRussianPOWs,[16][23]particularly Dmitry Volkov, who had escaped Auschwitz but was recaptured.Volkov advised them to travel lightly, with no money, and only at night, and to trust no one withtheir plans.[24]



At 20:33 that evening, the commander of Auschwitz II, SS-Sturmbannführer Fr itz Har tjenstein, wasinformed bytelepr inter that two Jews had escaped.[11] The men knew from previous escape attempts by other pr isoners that, oncetheir absence was noticed dur ing the evening appe ll , or roll call, theguards would continueto search for them for three days. Theytherefore remained in hiding until thefour th night, almost getting caught at one point when a searching guard stood ontop of the wood pile, r ight abovethem. On Apr il 10, wear ing Dutch suits, overcoats, and boots they hadtaken from"Canada," they madetheir way south, walking parallel to the So ar iver, heading for the olish border with Slovakia 80 miles (133 km.) away,[18] guiding themselves using a page from a child'satlas that Vrba had foundin the warehouse. He wrote:

At the moment of our escape, all connections with whatever fr iends and social contacts we hadinAuschwitz were severed, and we had absolutely no connection waiting for us outside the deathcamp ... We werede f acto wr itten off by the wor ld from the moment we were loaded into adepor tation train in the spr ing of 194 2 ... The only administrative evidence of our existence was aninternational warrant about us, issued telegraphically and distr i buted to all stations of theGestapo."[25]

The warrant was also telegraphed to the Kr i po (cr iminal police), the S icherhe itsd ienst (secur ity police) andthe Grenzpo li zei (border guards). Although Vrba hastold the story of his escape as oneof himself and Wetzler alone in the wor ld,R uth Linn wr ites that olish histor iography arguesthat the escape was only possi ble because of the olish underground operating inside the camp, and because of hel p fromlocal people outside.[25]

[ed it] The Vrba- W etz ler report

Fur ther information: Vrba-Wetzler repor t

One of the maps fromthe V rba-Wetz l er Report

Eleven days af ter escaping, Vrba and Wetzler crossedthe olish-Slovakian border.[10] They met afarmer who put themin touch with a Jewish doctor, Dr. ollack, who had a contact, Adre Steiner, inthe Slovak J udenrat (Jewish Council) in ilina. The J udenrat now called itself the Working Group,and regardeditself as an underground movement.[23][26] [27] Vrba lef t Dr. ollack's off ice with a bandage on his foot to counter any suspicion, leaving behind an emotionally wounded physician,who until then had hoped his family was still alive in the new"resettlement" areathey had been sent to.[28]

Vrba and Wetzler spent the night in adca in the home of Mrs Beck, a relative of the well-knownrabbi Leo Baeck,[29] and met the Working Groupthe next day, Apr il 24, 1944 .[28] The head of the



Working Group, Dr.Oskar Neumann, a German-speaking lawyer, placed the men in differentrooms in a former Jewish old people's home (used by the Judenrat since the old people were"resettled"), and interviewed them separately over three days. Vrba writes that he began by drawingthe inner layout of Auschwitz I and II, and the position of the ramp in relation to the two camps. Hedescribed the internal organization of the camps; how Jews were being used as slave labor forKrupp, Siemens, IG Farben, and D.A.W.; and the mass murder in gas chambers of those who had

been chosen for S onderbehandl

ng , or "special treatment".[30]

The report was written and re-written several times. Wetzler wrote the first part, Vrba the third, andthe two wrote the second part together. They then worked on the report together, re-writing it sixtimes.[31] As they were writing it, Dr. Neumann's aide,Oscar Krasniansky, an engineer andstenographer, who later took the nameOskar Isaiah Karmiel,[32] translated it from Slovak intoGerman with the help of Gisela Steiner,[31] producing a 32-page report in German, which wascompleted by Thursday, April 27, 1944.[33] Vrba wrote that the report was also hastily translatedinto Hungarian.

The original Slovak version of the report was not preserved, according to Kárný.[31] The Germanversion contained a precise description of the geography of the camps, their construction, theorganization of the management and security, how the prisoners were numbered and categorized,their diet, the selections, gassings, shootings, injections, and deaths from the living conditionsthemselves.[7][27] The report also contained sketches and information about the interior layouts andoperations of the gas chambers, based on information Vrba and Wetzler had received from theS onderkommando who worked there, which led to some inaccuracies.[34]

Jean-ClaudePressac, a French specialist on the mechanics of the mass murder, examined the reportand concluded that, while "somewhat unreliable and even quite wrong on some points, [it] has themerit of describing exactly the gassing process in type II/III Krematorien as from mid-March 1943.It made the mistake of generalizing internal and external descriptions and the operating method toKrematorien IV and V. Far from invalidating it, the discrepancies confirm its authenticity, as thedescriptions are clearly based on what the witnesses could actually have seen and heard."[35] Auschwitz scholar Robert Jan vanPelt concurs: "The description of the crematoria in the War Refugee Board report contains errors, but given the conditions under which information wasobtained, the lack of architectural training of Vrba and Wetzlar, and the situation in which the reportwas compiled, one would become suspicious if it did not contain errors."[36] Kárný writes that thereport is an invaluable historical document because it provides details that were known only to prisoners, most of whom died²including, for example, that discharge forms were filled out for prisoners who were gassed, indicating that death rates in the camp were actively falsified.[27]

[edit How the report was distributed

Blood for goods

Background Auschwitz· TheHolocaust Hungary in WWII· Hungarian Jews P eople Kurt Becher · Joel Brand· Adolf Eichmann· Malchiel Gruenwald Heinrich Himmler · Rudolf Kastner · YonasanSteif · Joel Teitelbaum· Rudolf Vrba · Alfréd



Wetzler · Chaim MichaelDov Weissmandl Issues Aid and RescueCommittee· Kastner train · Vrba-Wetzler report Sources Yehuda Bauer · RandolphBraham· John S.Conway· Ben Hecht· Raul Hilberg· MiroslavKarny· Ruth Linn· AnnaPorter This box:view talk edit

According to Kárný, the report was written and translated by April 28, 1944 at the latest,[3] althoughVrba says it was completed by April 27.Oscar Krasniansky had heard thatRudolf Kastner , a Jewishlawyer and journalist, andde fac t o head of theZionist Aid and Rescue Committee(Va'ada t EzrahVeha t zalah ) in Budapest, was about to visit Bratislava,[37] as he did regularly. According to one of Krasniansky's postwar statements, he personally handed a copy of the report to Kastner at the end ofApril.[37] According to British writer Laurence Rees, Kastner received a copy during his visit to

Bratislava on April 28.[38][39]

The dates on which the report was handed over to Kastner and others are important, because Vrbaand other Holocaust survivors and writers have alleged that the report was not distributed quicklyenough. Vrba claimed in his book that Kastner showed the report to Eichmann and asked if it wastrue. Eichmann denied it, but seeing that the contents of the report were not as yet publicknowledge, he speeded up the Hungarian deportations. He also put a hefty price on Vrba's head because of it. Kastner chose not to publicize its contents, and although the reasons for that decisionare complex and unclear, Vrba believed until the end of his life that Kastner withheld it in order notto jeopardize ongoing negotiations between the Aid and Rescue Committee andAdolf Eichmann,[38] the SS officer in charge of the transport of Jews out of Hungary, to secure the release of a number of Jews in exchange for money, 10,000 trucks, and other goods²the so-called "blood for goods" proposals.( S ee t he cont roversy sec t ion below , Joel B rand , and K as t ner t rain .)

Although Kastner did not make the report public, he did pass it on. Israeli historianYehuda Bauer writes that Kastner gave a copy to Geza Soos, a Hungarian Foreign Ministry official who ran aresistance group, almost as soon as he received it on or around April 28.[40] Soos gave it to Joszef Elias, head of the Good Shepherd Mission, aProtestant missionary organization, and his secretary,Maria Szekely, translated it into Hungarian and prepared six copies (though Vrba said it had already been translated into Hungarian by Krasniansky). These copies made their way to various Hungarianofficials. On June 20, Vrba metVatican legate Monsignor Mario Martilotti at the Svaty Jur monastery. Martilotti had been previously given a copy of the report and questioned Vrba for sixhours straight on every detail in the report.[3] Seeing that it was credible, he sent it to the Vatican viaSwitzerland. A few days later, Vrba was taken to meet RabbiChaim Michael Dov Weissmandl,who was regarded as the leader of theOrthodox community in Slovakia, at hisYeshiva inBratislava. Vrba wrote that it was clear during the meeting that Weissmandl was already familiar with the contents of the report.[41] He wrote of Weissmandl: "The visibility of Yeshiva life in thecenter of Bratislava, less than 150 miles [250 km.] south of Auschwitz, was in my eyes a typical piece of Goebbels-inspired activity and brazen Nazi humor. There²before the eyes of the world² the pupils of Rabbi Weissmandel could study the rules of Jewish ethics while their own sisters andmothers were being murdered and burned in Birkenau. At that time, only two months and 150 milesaway from an Auschwitz working at highest capacity, this Yeshiva struck me as merely a circuswith Rabbi Weissmandel as its main, albeit tragicomic, clown."[42]



[ed it] Deportat ions to Auschw itz cont inue

Bratislava, June-July 1944 . Vrba on the r ight, and on the lef t, Arnost R osin, who escaped fromAuschwitz on May 24, 1944 . The manin the middle is Josef Weiss, who worked for the BratislavaMinistry of Health. He secretly made copies of theVrba-Wetzler repor t, which the escapees kept hidden behind a picture of theVirgin Mary in an apar tment they were renting.[43]

On June6, 1944 , the day of the Normandylanding or D-Day, Arnost R osin (pr isoner no. 298 58)and Czes awMordowicz (pr isoner no.84 216) arr ived in Slovakia, having escaped from Auschwitzon May 27. Hear ing about the Battle of Normandy, and believingthe war was over,they got drunkto celebrate, using dollars they'd smuggled out of Auschwitz. They were promptly arrested for violating the currencylaws, and spent eight days in pr ison, beforethe Jewish Council paid their f ines.

R osin andMordowicz already knew Vrba and Wetzler. Vrba wrote in his memoir that any inmatewho managedto survive morethan a year in Auschwitz was regarded as a senior member of what he called the "old handsMaf ia," and all were knownto each other.[44] On June 15,the men wereinterviewed by Oscar Krasniansky, the engineer who hadtranslated the Vrba-Wetzler repor t intoGerman.[45] Theytold Krasnianskythat, betweenMay 15 andMay 27, 100,000 Hungar ian Jews hadarr ived at Birkenau, andthat most of them were killed on arr ival, apparently with no knowledge of what was about to happen to them.[16] The men repor ted that Jews were being killed at anunprecedented rate, with human fat being usedto accelerate the burning.[10]

John Conway, professor emer itus of history at the University of Br itish Columbia, and a fr iend of Vrba, has wr itten that, becauseR osin and Mordowicz were saying Hungar ian Jews arr iving at Auschwitz still had noidea what awaited them, Vrba and Wetzler concludedthat their informationhad been suppressed. According to Conway, Vrba remained convinced until the end of his life that "if the intended victims had been warned,they would have resisted or hid or f led."[12] In hismemoir, Vrba wrote: "I only learned af ter the war that more than 400,000 Hungar ian Jews were brought to Auschwitz af ter our escape and died a terr i ble death there upto mid-July, 1944 without ever having been warned by the Hungar ian Jewish Council about the true nature of 'resettlement'."[46]

[ed it] Broadcast of the report and the end of deportat ions

The Vrba-Wetzler R epor t is knownto have reachedthe Br itish and U.S. governments by mid-June1944 . Elizabeth Wiskemann of the Br itish Legation in Bern sent it to Allen Dulles, the head of U.S.intelligence, who sent it to theU.S. Depar tment of State in Washington, D.C. on June 16.[47] Detailsfromit were broadcast by the BBC on June 15, and on June 20,The N ew York T imes publishedthef irst of three stor ies about the existence of "gas chambersin the notor ious German concentrationcamps at Birkenau andO wi cim [Auschwitz]."[38]



Hungar ian regent Mikl s Hor thystoppedthe depor tations on July 9, 1944

Several wor ld leaders, including ope ius XII, resident Franklin D. R oosevelt, and the K ing of Sweden, appealed to Admiral Mikl s Hor thy to stop the depor tations.[38] On June 26, RichardLichtheim, a member of the Jewish Agencyin Geneva, sent a telegramto England calling on the

Allies to hold members of the Hungar ian government personally responsi ble for the killings.[38]

Thecable was intercepted by Hungary and shownto r ime Minister Döme Szt jay, who passedit toHor thy. On July 7, he orderedthat the depor tations end, which they did two dayslater.[38] Histor ianT.L. Sakmyster has wr itten that fear of being tr ied for war cr imes was not the only reason Hor thyhalted the depor tations; rather, before he readthe Vrba-Wetzler repor t, Hor thy had allegedlydismissedthe rumors about Auschwitz as"Jewish exaggeration."[48]

Hor thy himself wasin a quandary: while he was a Hungar ian nationalist and anantisemite, he never endorsed genocide for the Jews and was embarrassed bythe news of Vrba-Wetzler repor t.[49] Hor thy now realised that Germany would lose the war and drag Hungary down with it unless heacted; he therefore summonedEdmund Veesenmayer , the Nazi's Hungar ian representative, to theroyal palace to order a reduction in Eichmann's staff in Hungary and protested that Germany had

violated Hungary's sovereignty.[49]

Veesenmayer, who waslater convicted as a Nazi war cr iminal,wrote in a di plomatic telegramto Ber lin that Hor thy stated that "he wasin a very diff icult positionfeeling like a puppet, not a master of his own country" and that "in connection with the Jewishquestion" Hor thy "mentioned that telegrams were pour ing in on him by the day from home andabroad."[50] Hor thy resisted Hitler 's threats, and Budapest's over 200,000 Jews were spared from being depor ted to Auschwitz while Hor thy wasin power.

Jews continued to be depor ted, although in smaller numbers, af ter the over throw of Hor thy'sgovernment and its replacement on October 15, 1944 by the pro-German fascist ArrowCross ar ty.In November, Eichmann arranged for tens of thousands of Budapest Jews to walk the 120miles(200 km.) fromBudapest to Vienna, marching without food in the rain and snow. Eventually, protests from neutral countr ies, and repor tedly from other SS off icers, forcedHeinr ich Himmler , thehead of the SS,to instruct Eichmannto halt the marches.[51] By this time, however,the di plomaticinvolvement of the Swedish, Swiss, Spanish, or tuguese embassies at Budapest as well as thatof the Vatican's papal nuncio protected tens of thousands of the city's Jews from being depor ted.[52] The Swedish delegation under R aoul Wallenbergsaved 70,000 Jews until the arr ival of the R edArmyin Budapest in January 194 5.[53]

[ed it] After the report

[ed it] Res istance act ivi t ies



Vrba dur ing the war

Af ter handing his information over to the Slovakian Jewish Council, Vrba was assured byKrasnianskythat the repor t was "in the r ight hands",[54] and so Vrba felt his job was over. He andWetzler spent the next six weeksinLi ptovskýMikulá , and continuedto make and distr i bute copies

of their repor t whenever they could. The Slovak J udenrat gave Vrba papersin the name of R udolf Vrba, showing that he was a " pureAryan" going back three generations,[54] and suppor ted himf inancially to the tune of 200Slovak crownsper week, equivalent to an average worker's salary, andas Vrba wrote, "suff icient to sustain mein anillegal life in Bratislava."[55]

On August 29, 1944 , the Slovak Army revolted against the Nazis, and the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia was announced.[55] Vrba joinedtheCzechoslovak par tisan units in September 1944 ,taking R udolf Vrba as his nom de g uerre ,[7] and Apr il 7, the day of his escape, as his bir thday.[10] Hefought as a machine-gunner [56] in a unit commanded byMilan Uher, and received the CzechoslovakMedal for Bravery,the Order of Slovak National Insurrection, andthe Order of Mer itor ious Fighter.He legalized his new name af ter the li beration of Czechoslovakia.[7]

[ed it] After the war

Vrba movedto raguein 194 5, attending and working at the rague Technical University, where hereceived his doctorate in chemistry and biochemistry (Dr. Tech. Sc.)in 1951 for athesis entitled"On the metabolism of butyr ic acid."[57] This was followed by post-doctoral research at theCzechoslovak Academy of Science, wherehe received his C. Sc. in 1956.[7] According to fr iends,Vrba wasinitially a staunch suppor ter of the Communist ar ty, which had hel ped him and Wetzler escape from Auschwitz, and for whom he had fought with the Czech par tisans. However,"anti-semitic purgesin Stalinist Czechoslovakia, culminating in the 1952 tr ial of R udol ph Slansky, theCzechoslovakCommunist par ty secretary" drove himto want to emigrate.[56]



Vrba in 196 0

In the summer of 1944 he had re-acquainted himself with a childhood fr iend Ger ta, another SlovakJew, who survived the war by moving from Slovakia to Hungary and back under assumed names,eventually escaping theGestapo, and living as a refugeein R ussian controlled Budapest. Af ter thewar shetoo movedto rague and became a medical doctor ; they marr ied (shetook the surnameVrbová,the female version of Vrba), andthey hadtwo daughters, onein 1952, and onein 1954.

[58]

Soon af ter that the marr iage failed; Vrbová escaped with her daughters to Copenhagen via oland in1958, reaching England in 1959.[59]

In 1958, Vrba received an invitation to present at an international conferencein Israel, and whilethere, he also defected,[8] working for the next two years at theWeizmann Institute of Science inR ehovot.[60] He found he could not continue to live in Israel, becausethe same men who had,in hisview, betrayed the Jewish community in Hungary were nowin positions of power there,[8] so hedecided to moveto England in 196 0, becoming a Br itish citizen in 1966 .[57] In England, he workedfor two yearsin the Neuropsychiatr ic R esearch Unit in Carshalton, Surrey, and seven years for theBr itish Medical R esearchCouncil.[61]

On May 11, 196 0, SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmannwas captured by the Mossad inBuenos Aires and taken to Jerusalem to stand tr ial. Vrba wrote in his memoir that the Br itishnewspapers were suddenly full of stor ies about Auschwitz. He contacted Alan Bestic, a journalist with the Br itish newspaper,the Da il y Hera l d , to ask whether the newspaper would be interested inhis story. They were, andit was published in f ive installments of 1,000 words each over one weekin March 196 1, onthe eve of Eichmann'str ial. Vrba also submitted a statement in evidence against Eichmann. With Bestic's hel p, he wrote up the rest of his story in August 196 3 for his memoir,

Escape f rom A u sch witz: I cannot f org i ¡ e, which was published in English in 196 3.[62] He alsoappeared as a witness at one of the Frankfur t Auschwitz tr ials in 1964 , and testif ied at the seven-weektr ial for Holocaust denial of Ernst Zündel in Canadain 198 5.[7][12]

[ed it] Mo ve to Canada

R udolf andR obin Vrba at their wedding in 197 5.

Vrba movedto Canadain 1967 , serving ontheMedical R esearchCouncil of Canadafrom 1967 to197 3, and becoming a Canadian citizen in 197 2. He spent 197 3±197 5 as a research fellow at HarvardMedical School, where he met his second wife, R obin. They returnedto Vancouver, whereshe became a real estate agent, and he became an associate professor of pharmacology at theUniversity of Br itish Columbia until the ear ly 199 0s, specializing in neurology. He became knowninternationally for morethan 50 research papers onthe chemistry of the brain, and for his work ondiabetes and cancer.[63][64] Br itish histor ian Sir Mar tin Gil ber t suppor ted a campaign in 199 2 to have



him awarded theOrder of Canada, and solicited letters from well-known Canadians on his behalf, but was unsuccessful. In 1998, at the instigation of Linn, he received the title of Doctor of Philosophy H onoris C a ¢ sa from the University of Haifa.[6]

Vrba died of cancer on March 27, 2006 in Vancouver. He was survived by his first wife Gerta, hissecond wife Robin, his daughter Zuza Vrbová Jackson, and his grandchildren Hannah and Jan. Hewas pre-deceased by his older daughter Dr. Helena Vrbová, who died doing malaria research inPapua-New Guinea in 1982. His fellow escapee, Alfréd Wetzler, died in Slovakia in 1988.[65]

[edit Awards and documentaries

The Czech "One World festival"annually awards the "Rudolf Vrba Award" to originaldocumentaries that draw attention to an unknown theme about human rights.[66] Severaldocumentaries have told Vrba's story:G enocide for the ITV's World a t War series in 1973;

A £ schwi t z and t he Allies , directed by Rex Bloomstein and Martin Gilbert for the BBC in 1982;S hoah by Claude Lanzmannin 1985;Wit ness t o A£ schwi t z by Robin Taylor for CBC's Man Alive series in 1990; A £ schwi t z ²The G rea t Escape for the UK's Channel Five in 2007, and mostrecently, "Escape From Auschwitz" onPBS'sSecrets of the Deadseries in 2008.

[edit Contro ersy

[edit Vrba's allegations

Vrba believed that many of the 437,000 Hungarian Jews sent to Auschwitz between May 15 andJuly 7, 1944²when 12,000 Jews were being dispatched by train every day²would have resisted or hidden had they known they were to be killed and not resettled.[6][67]He wrote: "It is my contentionthat a small group of informed people, by their silence, deprived others of the possibility or privilege of making their own decisions in the face of mortal danger."[5]

Vrba wrote in his memoirs that, as the Germans were preparing the mass deportations to Auschwitz,the Jewish communities in Slovakia and Hungary placed their trust either in the Zionist leadership,such as Rudolf Kastner of Aid and Rescue Committee, or in Orthodox Jewishleaders, such asWeissmandl andPhilip von Freudiger. The Nazis were aware of this, which is why they lured precisely those members of the community into various negotiations, supposedly designed to leadto the release of some, or even most, of the Jews, but probably regarded by the Nazis as a way of placating the Jewish leadership into not spreading panic. Vrba wrote: "That the negotiators and theirfamilies were in fact pathetic, albeit voluntary, hostages in the hands of Nazi power was animportant part of these 'deals'."[5]

When Vrba arrived in Slovakia from Auschwitz, Kastner was involved with other members of theAid and Rescue Committee, particularlyJoel Brand, in a series of complex negotiations withEichmann, who was in charge of the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz, and who was offering totrade as many as one million Jews²who were supposedly to be allowed to settle anywhere butPalestine ²in exchange for 10,000 trucks and other goods from the WesternAllies.[68]



R udolf Vrbain 1946

Kastner's f irst meeting with Eichmanntook place on Apr il 25, 1944 , and three dayslater, on Apr il 28 ² the same daythe f irst trainload of Hungar ian Jewslef t for Auschwitz, although not as par t of the masstranspor ts²Kas tner is believed to have received a copy of the Vrba-Wetzler R epor t,[69]

though possi bly in German and not yet translated. Vrba allegedthat Kastner failed to distr i bute it, inorder not to jeopardize the negotiations with Eichmann, but instead acted on it pr ivately byarranging for a trainload of 1,684 Hungar ian Jews to escapeto Switzer land.[16] [70] According tohistor ian John Conway, the escaping par ty consisted of "themselves, their relatives, a coter ie of Zionists, some distinguished Jewish intellectuals, and a number of wealthy Jewish entrepreneurs."[6] According to Ladislaus Löb, however,the par ty included 285 children under 14 (many of themorphans), 126 Or thodox Jews (including 17 rabbis) and hundreds of ordinary people such asstudents, workmen,teachers and nurses.[71]

Bauer argues against this interpretation of Kastner's motives, wr iting that Kastner put his ownfamily on the train only to prove to the other passengersthat it was safe.[72] Vrba, in response,alleged that Bauer is one of the Israeli histor ians who have downplayed Vrba's role in Holocaust histor iography, and who seeksto defendthe Israeli and Zionist establishment. Vrba arguedthat Kastner's negotiations with the Nazis were far-fetched and foolish, and that they amounted tocollaboration.[6] The allegations against Kastner were heard bytheSupremeCour t of Israel in 1957,af ter Malchiel Gruenwald, an Israeli amateur wr iter and stamp collector, accused Kastner in a self- published pamphlet of being a Nazi collaborator. Because Kastner was bythen a senior Israeli civil servant, the Israeli government sued the wr iter for li bel, and although Kastner was eventuallyexonerated, he was shot on March 3, 1957, as a result of the allegations, and died of his woundstendayslater.[73]

Most Holocaust histor ians disagree with Vrba's interpretation of the Slovakian and Hungar ianJewish leadershi p's actions. Bauer wr ites that, by the time the repor t was prepared,it was alreadytoo late for anything to alter the Nazis' depor tation plans.[74] Bauer cautions about the need todistinguish between the recei pt of information and its "internalization", where it's regarded ascorrect and wor thy of action, arguing that this is a complicated process: "Dur ing the Holocaust,countless individuals received information and re jected it, suppressedit, or rationalized about it,were thrown into despair without any possi bility of acting on it, or seemingly internalized it andthen behaved asthough it had never reachedthem."[75] Bauer has wr itten that Vrba's "wild attackson Kastner and onthe Slovak underground are a-histor ical and simply wrong fromthe star t ..."[76]

[ed it] W hat Vrba knew: sur viv or versus expert d iscourse



rofessor Yehuda Bauer calls Vrba one of the "Heroes of the Holocaust," but also says heisembittered, fur ious, and not credi ble.

Vrba was cr iticized in 2001in a ser ies of ar ticles² L eadersh i p under D uress: The Work ing Gro u pin S l ovak ia, 1942±1944 ²ed ited by a group of leading Israeli histor ians with ties to theSlovak community, including Bauer, Hanna Yablonka, Gila Fatran, and Livia R othkirchen. Theintroduction by Giora Amir refersto those who arguethat the Slovakian Jewish Council may havecollaborated with the Nazis, as "a bunch of mockers and pseudo-histor ians ..." Amir wr ites that the" baseless" accusation was lent credence whenthe University of Haifa awarded an honorarydoctorate to the "head of these mockers, eter [sic] Vrba." Amir continues: "The heroism of this person, whotogether with the late Alfréd Wetzler, was amongthe f irst to escape from Auschwitz, is beyond doubt. But the fact that, just because he was an Auschwitz pr isoner endowed with personal heroism, he has crowned himself as knowledgeable to judge all those involved in the noble work of rescue, and accusethem falsely, deeply disturbs us,the Czech community."[77]

The tension between what Linn calls the "survivor discourse" and the "exper t discourse" lies at thehear t of this cr iticism of Vrba.Bauer has called Vrba's memoir "not a memoir in the usual sense",alleging that it "contains excerpts of conversations of which there is no chancethat they areaccurate and it has elements of a second-hand story that does not necessar ily correspond withreality." When wr iting about himself and his personal exper iences, Vrba's account is an impor tant one, arguesBauer. "Everything hetells about himself and about his actions ... is not only the truth, but also [forms] a document of signif icant histor ical value." But he continues: "I admired Vrba,with true admiration² though mixed with resistance to his thoughts in histor ical matters in whichhe thinks heis an exper t, though I am not sure heis justif ied in thinking so."[78] For his par t, Vrbaof ten dismissed the opinion of Holocaust histor ians; for example, regarding the number of peoplekilled at Auschwitz, he said "Yehuda Bauer simply doesn't know what he's talking about, but withhis impressive title, hethinks he canthrow around f igures without doing any research.Hil bergand

Bauer don't know enough about the history of Auschwitz or the E insatzgr u ppen ."[79]

It has also been allegedthat Vrba embellished what he said was his eyewitness account. Vrba wrotein his memoir, wr itten in 196 3, that he overheard SS off icers in Auschwitz discuss howthey wouldsoon have "Hungar ian salami ... by the ton", allegedly a referenceto the imminent arr ival of hundreds of thousands of depor ted Hungar ian Jews. However, Vrba did not mention in the Vrba-Wetzler repor t, wr itten in Apr il 1944 , that he had advance warning of the mass depor tation of Hungary's Jews, which beganin May 1944 .[21] Kárný wr ites: "It is generally accepted that at thetime Vrba and Wetzler were prepar ing their escape,it was knownin Auschwitz that annihilationmechanisms were being perfected in order to kill hundreds of thousands of Hungary's Jews.It was



this knowledge, according to Vrba, that became the main motive for their escape. ... But in fact,there is no mention in the Vrba and Wetzler report that preparations were under way for theannihilation of Hungary's Jews. ... If Vrba and Wetzler considered it necessary to record rumorsabout the expected arrival of Greece's Jewishtransports, then why wouldn't they have recorded arumor²had they known it²about the expected transports of hundreds of thousands of Hungary'sJews? ..."[80] Kárný argues that, although Vrba and Wetzler did not, in his view, have advance

warning of the imminent Hungarian Endlös¤

ng , Vrba later²long after the war was over²wantedto testify about it out of a longing to force the world to face the magnitude of the Nazis' crimes. Thesuspicion is that Vrba's longing may have led to a degree of embellishment in his subsequentaccounts, although not in the Vrba-Wetzler report itself, regarding how much he actually knewwhen he escaped from the camp.[80]

In a later edition of his memoirs, Vrba responded that he is certain the reference to the imminentHungarian deportations was in the original,Slovakianversion of Vrba-Wetzler report, some of which he wrote by hand. He wrote that he recalledOscar Krasniansky of the Slovakian JewishCouncil, who translated the report into German, arguing that only actual deaths should be recorded,and not speculation, in order to lend the report maximum credibility. Vrba speculates this was thereason Krasniansky omitted the references to Hungary from the German translation the latter prepared, which was the main version that was copied around the world. The original version inSlovak did not survive.[81]

[edit Vrba's story allegedly suppressed

Vrba believed that successive Israeli historians have virtually erased his story from the IsraeliHolocaust narrative[82] because of his controversial views aboutRudolf Kastner and the Hungarian

J ¥ denra t , many of whom went on to hold prominent positions in Israel.[6]

Ruth Linn, dean of education at theUniversity of Haifain Israel, writes: "Ever since I saw theLanzmann documentary, this question stayed in my mind: Am I the only crazy Israeli who fell

asleep in class when we studied this in the Holocaust?Or maybe we never studied it ... In terms of literature, [ Escape from A ¥ schwi t z: I canno t forgive ] is in the class of Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, first-class novelists of the Holocaust. But then I turned the book back and forth and I see on the cover,'First published 1963.' And the year is 1994. I said to myself, 'Where has this book been for 31years? I never read about it in Israel."[82]

Linn alleges that a "family of Israeli historians" have misnamed, misreported, miscredited, andmisrepresented Vrba's story.[83] She writes that the story is misrepresented in Hebrew textbooks byomitting Vrba's and Wetzler's names or by minimizing their contribution. Standard histories of theHolocaust typically refer only to the escape by "two young Slovak Jews", "two chaps", or "twoyoung people",[6] and represent Vrba and Wetzler as emissaries of thePolish underground inAuschwitz, as mere messengers.[84]

Linn cites the non-publication inHebrewof Vrba's memoirs for 35 years after their publication inEnglish,[85] and the failure to translate the Vrba-Wetzler report itself into Hebrew.[86] Yad Vashem holds one of the world's most extensive collections of Holocaust documentation, and yet, as of2004, there was no English or Hebrew version of the Vrba-Wetzler report.[87] The Hungarianversion, marked 015/9, is held in the archives in a file about Rudolf Kastner, and without the namesof its authors. Linn quotes Yad Vashem's response to an inquiry in June 1997 from Yehoshua BenAmi, the Hebrew translator of Vrba's memoirs, about having the report translated into Hebrew:"Indeed, it would have been important to translate the Vrba-Wetzler report, just as it is important totranslate other significant documents ... Hopefully we will have the money one day."[88]



Uri Dromi of the Israel Democracy Institute writes that Vrba's story has in fact been told, citing atleast four popular Israeli books on the Holocaust that mention Vrba and Wetzler's escape, and thatWetzler's testimony is recounted at length in Livia Rothkirchen's Hu rban yahad u t S lovakia (The

Des t r u ct ion of S lovakian Jewry ), published by Yad Vashem in 1961. Yeshayahu Jelinek, a historianof Slovakia's Jewish community, credits Vrba's obscurity to the general obscurity of SlovakianJews: "Who ever thinks about the Jews of Slovakia? A medium-size ghetto inPoland was larger

than our whole community. Everyone knows aboutHannah Szenes. How many people know aboutHaviva Raik ?"[89]

Dr. Robert Rozett, head librarian atYad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial and museumin Jerusalem, and author of the entry on the "Auschwitz Report" in Encyclopedia of t he H oloca u st ,has said of the Vrba controversy: "There are people who come into the subject from a certain angleand think that they've uncovered the truth. A historian who deals seriously with the subjectunderstands that the truth is complex and multifaceted."[89]

[edit See also

y Holocaust (resources) y Jan Karski

y WitoldPilecki

[edit Notes

1. ^ Dromi, Uri."Deaf ears, blind eyes", H aare t z, January 1, 2005.o According toRuth Linn, 76 Jews escaped overall, though only five managed to pass

information about the camp to the Allies. (Linn (2004), p. 15.) Hundreds of Polish prisoners escaped from Auschwitz, but it was harder for Jewish inmates, accordingto Polish historian Henryk wiebocki, because many had no friends or relatives inPoland that they could rely on, spoke noPolish, and had limited contact with thePolish resistance inside the camp. (wiebocki (1998), p. 511.) Miroslav Kárný,citingPolish historian Tadeusz Iwaszko, writes that 667 prisoners are known to havetried to escape, 270 of whom were caught and killed. Very little documentationexists about the remaining 397. (Kárný (1994), p. 553.

2. ^ Gutman (1990). Also see"The Vrba Wetzler Report" The H oloca u st H ist ory Projec t ,retrieved April 2, 2006. A two-part report had been prepared by thePolish underground onAugust 10 and 12, 1943, based on information fromWitold Pilecki, and was sent to theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS) in London. The report included details about the gaschambers, about "selection," and about the sterilization experiments. It stated that there werethree crematoria in Birkenau able to burn 10,000 people daily, and that 30,000 people had been gassed in one day. The author wrote: "History knows no parallel of such destruction of

human life."Raul Hilbergwrites that the report was filed away with a note that there was noindication as to the reliability of the source. (Hilberg (2003), p. 1212.)3. ^ a b c d Kárný (1994), p. 556. The BBC first broadcast information from the report on June

18, not June 15, according toLinn (2004), p. 28. Although information from the report was published in June 1944, the full report was first published on November 25, 1944 by theU.S. War Refugee Board, the same day that the last 13 prisoners, all women, were killed inthe gas chambers at Auschwitz. The women were "unmittelbar getötet," leaving openwhether they were gassed or otherwise disposed of. (Czech (1989), pp. 920 and 933, usinginformation from a series called H ef t e von A u schwi t z, and cited inKárný (1994), p. 564).

4. ^ Linn (2003).



5. ^ a b c d Vrba (2002), pp. 419±420.6. ^ a b c d e f g Conway, John. "Escaping Auschwitz: Sixty years later", Vier t eljahrshef t e f u er

Zei t geschich t e, Vol. 53, no. 3, 2005, pp. 461±472.7. ^ a b c d e f "Rudolf Vrba: Curriculum Vitae", UBCPharmacology & Therapeutics.8. ^ a b c d e f g h Rudolf Vrba, The Daily Telegraph , April 12, 2006.9. ^ a b c Vrba (2002), p. 207.

10. ^ a

b

c

d

Linn, Ruth. "Rudolf Vrba", obituary inThe Gu ardian , April 13, 2006.11. ^ a b Kárný (1994), p. 553.12. ^ a b c d Hume (2006).13. ^ a b c Linn (2004), p. 17.14. ^ Vrba (2002), p. 377.15. ^ In his testimony at the 1985Ernst Zündeltrial, Vrba gave the date as January 15, 1943.

Lungen (2005)gives June 1943 as the transfer date.16. ^ a b c d e f Lungen (2005).17. ^ Linn (2004), p. 19.18. ^ a b Vrba (2006).19. ^ a b c Linn (2004), p. 18.20. ^ In March 1990 Vrba stated "Hilberg's estimate of 1 million killed is a gross error

bordering on ignorance... According to my observations there were 1,765,000 victims whichI counted." ( Nueman (1990)).

21. ^ a b Gilbert 1994, p. 551.22. ^ Kárný 1994, p. 560.23. ^ a b "April 7", Yad Vashem .24. ^ Levine (2000), p. 220.25. ^ a b Linn (2004), p. 20.26. ^ Fatran (1994), pp. 164±201.27. ^ a b c Kárný (1994), p. 554.28. ^ a b Linn (2004), p. 21.29. ^ Vrba (2002), p. 399.30. ^ Vrba (2002), p. 400.31. ^ a b c This description of how the report was written was recorded in the first post-war

edition, issued in 1946,O swiecim, hrobka t yroch miliónov u dí , Bratislava, p. 74. Wetzler also confirmed it in a letter to Miroslav Kárný, dated April 14, 1982. Cited inKárný (1994), p. 564, footnote 5.

32. ^ Vrba (2002), p. 402.33. ^ Vrba (2002), p. 403.34. ^ "It is clear that the account of the layout of the interior is based on second-hand

information derived from the Sonderkommando. Indeed, in a sworn deposition Vrba madein 1961 and in his later book I C anno t Forgive (1963), Vrba stated that he and Wetzlar received all the specific information on the crematoria from Sonderkommando Filip Müller and his colleagues. In his autobiographical Eyewi t ness A u schwi t z, Müller confirmed Vrba's

story. "I had described to them in full detail the process of extermination so that they would be able to report to the outside world exactly how the victims had their last pitiful belongings taken away from them; how after the gassings their teeth were wrenched out andwomen's hair cut off; how the dead were searched for hidden valuables; how their spectacles, artificial limbs and dentures were collected; and everything else that took place."(Van Pelt (2002), p. 149).

35. ^ Pressac (1989), p. 464.36. ^ Van Pelt (2002), p. 151.37. ^ a b Linn (2004), p. 27.38. ^ a b c d e f Rees (2006), pp. 242±243.



39. ^ Ruth Linnwrites thatOscar Krasniansky quickly translated the report into Hungarian for Kastner's arrival in Bratislava on April 28, butYehuda Bauer writes that Kastner gave acopy of the report, untranslated, to Geza Soos, a Hungarian Foreign Ministry official, thatSoos gave it to Joszef Elias, head of the JoePasztor Misszio, and that it was Elias'ssecretary, Maria Szekely, who translated the report into Hungarian. (Bauer (1994), p. 157).

40. ^ Bauer (1994), p. 157.

41. ^ Vrba (2002), p. 408.42. ^ Vrba (2002), p. 410.43. ^ Conway, John S. "The first report about Auschwitz", Museum of Tolerance, Simon

Wiesenthal Center, Annual 1 Chapter 07, retrieved September 11, 2006.44. ^ Vrba (2002), p. 406.45. ^ The text of the Vrba-Wetzler report, under the title "German Extermination Camps²

Auschwitz and Birkenau", was first published in full in an English translation on November 26, 1944 by the ExecutiveOffice of the U.S. War Refugee Board. It was this document thatcombined the testimony of Vrba and Wetzler with two other reports, and these came to beknown jointly as the AuschwitzProtocols. (John Conway. "The Significance of the Vrba-Wetzler Report on Auschwitz-Birkenau", inVrba (2002), Appendix I, pp. 292±293, footnote3.) The protocols consisted of the Vrba-Wetzler report, and an earlier two-part report fromAugust 10 and August 12, 1943 written byWitoldPileckiwho was a member of thePolishunderground in Auschwitz, and sent to theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS) inLondon.The August 1943Polish report included details about the gas chambers, about "selection",and about the sterilization experiments. It stated that there were three crematoria in Birkenauwith the capacity to incinerate 10,000 bodies daily, and that 30,000 people had been gassedin one day. The author wrote: "History knows no parallel of such destruction of human life."Raul Hilbergwrites that the report was filed away with a note that there was no indication asto the reliability of the source. (Hilberg (2003), p. 1212). The four-to-seven page report based on information from Arnost Rosin and Czesaw Mordowicz, who escaped fromAuschwitz on May 27, 1944, shortly after Vrba and Wetzler, was also attached. All threereports were submitted in evidence at the Nuremberg Trialsand were assigned the documentnumber 022-L. The full text is held in the archives of the War Refugee Board at the F.D.Roosevelt Library in New York. It is not known when the reports were first called theAuschwitzProtocols. R. Braham referred to them as the AuschwitzProtocols inThe Poli t icsof G enocide. The H oloca u st in Hu ngary , volume 2, 1981, pp. 708±716. (John Conway. "TheSignificance of the Vrba-Wetzler Report on Auschwitz-Birkenau", inVrba (2002),Appendix I, pp. 292±293, footnote 3).

46. ^ Vrba (2002), p. 407.47. ^ Gutman (1990).48. ^ Sakmyster (1994), cited inLinn (2004), p. 138, footnote 2.49. ^ a b Dwork & VanPelt (2002), p. 314.50. ^ Telegram, Veesenmayer to German ForeignOffice, June 6, 1944, inLévai, Jenö (ed)

(1987), p. 121.

51. ^ Rees (2006), pp. 257±258.52. ^ Dwork & VanPelt (2002), p. 317.

53. ^ Dwork & VanPelt (2002), p. 318.54. ^ a b Vrba (2002), p. 404.55. ^ a b Vrba (2002), p. 410±11.56. ^ a b Rose, Hilary and Steven.Letter: Rudolf Vrba, The Gu ardian , April 25, 2006.57. ^ a b Vrba, Rudolf."Fullcu rric u l u m vit ae", University of British Columbia.58. ^ Martin, Sandra (2006).59. ^ "µTrust and Deceit¶ launched", no byline, UCL News,University College London, June 9,

2006, retrieved September 7, 2006.



60. ^ Barkat, Amiran."Death camp escapee Vrba dies at 82", H aare t z, April 2, 2006.61. ^ Sanderson, David & Smith, Lewis. "Witness to Auschwitz horror dies at 82", The Times ,

April 01, 2006.62. ^ It was also published in German (1964), French (1988), Dutch (1996), Czech (1998), and

Hebrew (1998).63. ^ Martin, Douglas (2006).

64. ^ Proudfoot (2006).65. ^ "Auschwitz escapee, 82, dies in Canada", The Jer u salem Pos t , April 1, 2006.o Rudolf Vrba, The Daily Telegraph , April 12, 2006.o Martin, 2006.o "Sources of Funding for UK & EU Applicants", Helena Vrbová Scholarship. London

School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, retrievedSeptember 7, 2006

o Medoff, 2006.66. ^ Rudolf Vrba, One World 2006 website, retrieved April 2, 2006.67. ^ Linn argues "A small calculation suggests that, if only one percent of the 437,000

Hungarian Jewish victims had been persuaded of the truth of the report and had chosen notto board the boxcar trains to Auschwitz, almost three times 1,684 Jews [the number on theKastner train] could probably have been saved". (Linn (2004), p. 47).

68. ^ April 25: "Blood for Trucks" Negotiations Start, Yad Vashemwebsite. Accessed April 5,2005. The "one million Jews", who would have to leave Hungary and emigrate anywhere but Palestine, were being offered for 25,000 trucks supplied by the WesternAllies, whichwould be used for German civilian purposes, or on theEastern Front. ArchivedApril 6,2005 at theWayback Machine.

69. ^ Bauer (1994), p. 156.70. ^ "The greatest 'idealist' Eichmann ever encountered among the Jews was Dr.Rudolf

Kastner , with whom he negotiated during the Jewish deportations from Hungary and withwhom he came to an agreement that he, Eichmann, would permit the 'illegal' departure of afew thousand Jews toPalestine (the trains were in fact guarded by German police) inexchange for 'quiet and order' in the camps from which hundreds of thousands were shippedto Auschwitz. The few thousand saved by the agreement, prominent Jews and members of the Zionist youth organizations, were, in Eichmann's words, 'the best biological material.'Dr. Kastner, as Eichmann understood it, had sacrificed his fellow-Jews to his 'idea,' and thiswas as it should be." (Arendt (1994), p. 42).

71. ^ Löb (2008), pp. 115±17.72. ^ Bauer (1994), p. 198.73. ^ Hecht (1999), p. 207.74. ^ Bauer (1997), pp. 297±307.75. ^ Bauer (1994), p. 72.76. ^ Yehuda Bauer in a letter toRuth Linn, cited inLinn (2004), p. 111.77. ^ Bauer, Y., Yablonka, H., Jelinek, Y., Akiva, N., Fatran, G., Frider, E., Conway, J.,

Rothkirchen, L., Spitzer, J. L

eadership in Time of Dis t ress: The Working G

rou p in

S lovakia,1942±1944 . Kibbutz Dalia:Maarecht, 2001, 11±12. Introduction by Giora Amir. Translation

from Hebrew. Cited inLinn (2004), p. 109.78. ^ Yehuda Bauer in a letter to Mr. Ben Ami, the Hebrew translator of Vrba's memoir, cited in

Linn (2004), p. 111.79. ^ Nueman (1990).80. ^ a b Kárný (1994), p. 559.81. ^ Vrba (2002), p. 413.82. ^ a b Johnson (2006).83. ^ Linn (2004), p. 55.



84. ^ Cohen (1996), pp. 360±382, cited inLinn (2004), p. 85.85. ^ Linn (2004), p. 70.86. ^ Linn (2004), p. 71.87. ^ The German version of the Vrba-Wetzler report in the Yad Vashem archive is marked M-

20/153.88. ^ Linn (2004), p. 72.

89. ^ a

b

Dromi, Uri."Deaf ears, blind eyes", H aare t z, January 1, 2005.

[edit References

y "Vrba, Rudolf", no byline, B C B ookworld a u t hor bank , retrieved April 1, 2006.y "The Vrba-Wetzler Report", The Holocaust HistoryProject, retrieved April 2, 2006.y "Rudolf Vrba Curriculum Vitae", Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Faculty

of Medicine, University of British Columbia, retrieved April 2, 2006.y "April 7", Yad Vashem, retrieved April 2, 2006.y "Rudolf Vrba Award", 8th international human rights documentary film festival,O ne

World , retrieved April 2, 2006.y

"Sources of Funding for UK & EU Applicants", Helena Vrbova Scholarship. LondonSchool of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,University of London, retrieved September 7,2006.

y "µTrust and Deceit¶ launched", no byline, UCL News,University College London, June9, 2006, retrieved September 7, 2006.

y "April 25: Blood for trucks", Yad Vashem , retrieved April 2, 2006.y "Auschwitz escapee, 82, dies in Canada", no byline,The Jer u salem Pos t , April 1, 2006.y Rudolf Vrba, no byline,The Daily Telegraph , April 12, 2006.y Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jer u salem: A Repor t on t he B anali t y of Evil , Penguin

Classics, January 1, 1994.ISBN 0-14-018765-0 y Bauer, Yehuda. Ret hinking t he H oloca u st . Yale UniversityPress; New Ed edition, 2002.

ISBN 0-300-09300-4 y Bauer, Yehuda. Yablonka, H., Jelinek, Y., Akiva, N., Fatran, G., Frider, E., Conway, J.,Rothkirchen, L., Spitzer, J. (eds) L eadership in Time of Dis t ress: The Working G ro u p in

S lovakia, 1942±1944 , Kibbutz Dalia:Maarecht, 2001, 11±12. Introduction by GioraAmir. Translation from Hebrew.

y Bauer, Yehuda. "Anmerkungen zum 'Auschwitz-Bericht' von Rudolf Vrba,"Vier t eljahrshef t e für Zei t geschich t e, Vol. 45 1997.

y Bauer, Yehuda. Jews for S ale? Nazi±Jewish Nego t ia t ions 1933±1945 . Yale UniversityPress, 1994.ISBN 0-300-06852-2

y Barkat, Amiram."Death camp escapee Vrba dies at 82", H aare t z, April 2, 2006.y Cohen, A. (1996) "The Holocaust Hungarian Jews in light of the research of Randolph

Braham," Yad Vashem. Studies, Vol xxv.y Conway, John. "Escaping Auschwitz: Sixty years later", Vier t eljahrshef t e f u er

Zeit geschich t e, Vol. 53, no. 3, 2005, pp. 461±472.y Czech, Danuta (ed) K alendari u m der Ereignisse im K onzen t ra t ionslager A u schwi t z -

B irkena u 1939±1945 , Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989.y Dromi, Uri."Deaf Ears, Blind Eyes", H aare t z, January 30, 2005.y Dwork, Debórah & VanPelt, Robert Jan. H oloca u st : A H ist ory , W.W. Norton &

Company, 2002.ISBN 978-0-393-05188-9 y Fatran, Gila. "The Working Group", H oloca u st and G enocide S t u dies , 8:2 (1994).y Gilbert, Martin. "What Was Known and When," inBerenbaum, Michael& Gutman,

Yisrael (eds). Ana t omy of t he Au schwi t z Dea t h C amp , Indiana UniversityPress, 1994.ISBN 0-253-20884-X



y Gutman, Yisrael. Encyclopedia of t he H oloca u st , MacmillanPublishers, 1990. ISBN 0-02-896090-4

y y Hecht, Ben. Perfidy . Milah Press, first published 1961; this edition 1999.ISBN 0-

9646886-3-8 y Hilberg, Raul. The Des t r u ct ion of t he E u ropean Jews , first published in 1961, this

editionYale UniversityPress, 2003.ISBN 0-300-09557-0 y Hume, Mark."Auschwitz escapee who told the world dies in B.C.", The G lobe and

Mail , March 31, 2006.y Johnson,Pat. "Israeli narrative omits Vrba", Jewish Independen t , April 21, 2006.y Kárný, Miroslav. "The Vrba and Wetzler report," inBerenbaum, Michael& Gutman,

Yisrael (eds). Ana t omy of t he A u schwi t z Dea t h C amp. Indiana UniversityPressand theUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum(1994); this edition 1998.ISBN 0-253-20884-X

y Katz, Leslie."Auschwitz escapee to help mark Yom HaShoah here", j., April 25, 1997.y Lévai, Jenö (ed). Eichmann in Hu ngary: Doc u ment s, Howard Fertig, 1987.ISBN 978-0-

86527-352-8 y Levine, Alan J.C ap t ivit y, Fligh t , and Su rvival in World War II , Praeger Publishers,

August 30, 2000.ISBN 0-275-96955-X y Linn, Ruth. "Rudolf Vrba", obituary inThe Gu ardian , April 13, 2006.y Linn, Ruth. Escaping A u schwi t z. A cu l t u re of forge tt ing , Cornell UniversityPress,

August 30, 2004.ISBN 0-8014-4130-7 y ________ . "Genocide and thePolitics of Remembering: The Nameless, the Celebrated

and the Would-Be Holocaust Heroes," Jo u rnal of G enocide Research , 5, 4 (December 2003) pp. 565±586.

y ________ . "Naked victims, dressed-up memory: The escape from Auschwitz and theIsraeli historiography," in Israel S t u dies Bu llet in.

y Löb, Ladislaus. Dealing wi t h S at an , Jonathan Cape, 2008.ISBN 978-0-224-07792-7 y Lungen,Paul. "Auschwitz escapee hoped to warn Hungarian Jews", C anadian Jewish

News, January 20, 2005, retrieved December 27, 2009.y Martin, Douglas. "Rudolf Vrba, 82, Auschwitz Witness, Dies",The New York Times ,

April 7, 2006.y Martin, Sandra. "Rudolf Vrba, Scientist andProfessor 1924±2006",The G lobe and Mail ,

April 8, 2006.y Medoff, Rafael. "In memoriam: the man who exposed Auschwitz"PDF (2.92MiB), The

Jewish Trib u ne, April 20, 2006, p. 4.y Nueman, Elena. "New List of Holocaust Victims Reignites Dispute over Figures",

Jewish Telegraphic Agency , March 5, 1990.y Pressac, Jean-Claude. Au schwi t z: Techniq u e and opera t ion of t he gas chambers , The

Beate KlarsfeldFoundation, 1989.y Proudfoot, Shannon. "Auschwitz escapee alerted world to horrors of the Holocaust",

Ott awa

C it izen , March 31, 2006.y Rees, Laurence. Au schwi t z: A New H ist ory, PublicAffairs, 2006.ISBN 1-58648-357-9

y Rose, Hilary and Steven.Letter: Rudolf Vrba, The Gu ardian , April 25, 2006.y Sanderson, David & Smith, Lewis."Witness to Auschwitz horror dies at 82", The Times ,

April 1, 2006.y Sakmyster, T.L. Hu ngary's Admiral on H orseback: Miklos H or t hy, 1918±1944 . New

York:Columbia UniversityPress, 1994.y Strzelecki, Andrzej. "ThePlunder of Victims and Their Corpses," inBerenbaum,

Michael & Gutman, Yisrael (eds). Ana t omy of t he Au schwi t z Deat h C amp . IndianaUniversityPressand theUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1998.



y wiebocki, Henryk. "Prisoner Escapes" in Ana t omy of t he Au schwi t z Deat h C amp , p. 511, Gutman, Yisrael &Berenbaum, Michael(eds), Indiana UniversityPressand theUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum(1994); this edition 1998.ISBN 0-253-20884-X

y Van Pelt, Robert Jan.The C ase for A u schwi t z: Evidence from t he Irving Trial , IndianaUniversityPress, January 1, 2002.ISBN 0-253-34016-0

y Vrba, Rudolf. First published as I C anno t Forgive by Sidgwick and Jackson,GrovePress, 1963, ISBN 0-394-62133-6; also published as Escape from A u schwi t z: I C anno t Forgive ; this edition entitled I Escaped from A u schwi t z, Barricade Books, 2002,ISBN 1-56980-232-7

y __________ . "The one that got away", extract from I Escaped from A u schwi t z, TheGu ardian , April 14, 2006.

[edit Further reading

y Rudolf Vrba's academic CV from the University of British Columbia y Berenbaum, Michael. "Righteous Anger Fuels µAuschwitz¶", The Jewish Jo u rnal of

Grea t er

Los Angeles , October 15, 2004.y Bilsky, Leora."Judging Evil in the Trial of Kastner", L aw and H ist ory Review , Vol 19,

No. 1, Spring 2001y Conway, John S. "The First Report about Auschwitz", Museum of Tolerance, Annual 1,

Chapter 7.y Dromi, Uri. "Sold his soul to the devil", H aare t z, January 28, 2005y __________ . "Your State of Kastners", H aare t z January 28, 2005 (in Hebrew)y Fried, S."The Kasztner Trial", Dei'ah veDib u r , July 23, 2003.y Kulka, Erich, "Attempts by Jewish Escapees to Stop Mass Extermination", Jewish S ocial

S t u dies 47:3/4 (1985:Summer /Fall) 295±306.y Laor, Yitzhak."Auschwitz, They Tell Me You¶ve BecomePopular", H aare t z, December

26, 2004 (review of Ruth Linn's Escaping A u schwi t z: A C u l t u re of Forge tt ing , Cornell

UniversityPress)y Lebor, Adam. "Eichmann's list: a pact with the devil",The Independen t , August 23,

2000.y Linn, Ruth. (2004) "The Escape from Auschwitz: Why didn't they teach us about it in

school",Theory and C ri t icism , 24:163±184 (in Hebrew).y McMaster, Geoff."Holocaust survivor recounts days at Auschwitz", University of

Alberta ExpressNEW S , October 28, 2003.y Medoff, Rafael. "The Unmentionable Victims of Auschwitz," The David S. Wyman

Institute for Holocaust Studies, December 2004.y wiebocki, Henryk. L ondon has been informed. Repor t s by Au schwi t z Escapees ,

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum: the first full publication of the entire reports, 1997.y Teicholz, Tom. "Tommywood - Unanswered Questions", , The Jewish Jo u rnal of

G rea t er L os Angeles , April 21, 2006.y Vrba, Rudolf. "Personal Memories of Actions of SS-Doctors of Medicine in Auschwitz I

and Auschwitz II (Birkenau)" in Roland et al. (eds). Medical Science withoutCompassion,Past and Present , Arbeit spapiere-A tt i-Proceedings, No. 11, H amb u rger S t if t u ng für S ozialgeschich t e des 20.Jahrh u nder t s, 1993.

y __________ . "Die Missachtete Warnung. Betrachtungen über den Auschwitz-Bericht1944,"Vier t eljahrshef t e für Zei t geschich t e, vol. 44, Heft 1/1996, pp. 1±24.

y __________ . "The Preparations For The Holocaust In Hungary: An EyewitnessAccount" inThe Nazis' Las t Vict ims: The H oloca u st in Hu ngary , pp. 55±102. Edited byRandolph L.Braham with Scott Miller.Wayne State UniversityPress, Detroit, 1998.



Also published in:The H oloca u st in Hu ngary. Fif t y years la t er , pp. 227±285. Edited byRandolph L. Braham and AttilaPok,Columbia UniversityPress, New York, 1997

y __________ . "Science and the Holocaust", Foc u s, University of Haifa; an edited versionof Vrba's address when he received his honorary doctorate, 1998.

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Rudolf Vrba

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