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Posted: April 30th, 2008
Escape From Auschwitz
Auschwitz was Hitler’s largest concentration camp. Nazi records show that tens of thousands of Jews from German-occupied territories were sent there to be executed each month, and by 1944, 12,000 Jews a day were being murdered inside its barbed wire fences. This appalling massacre was one of Germany’s most heavily-guarded secrets, carefully concealed from the outside world. But two Auschwitz prisoners, Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, were determined to expose the horrors of the Nazi genocide and stop the killing factories forever. To do that, they had to escape from the heavily-guarded camp. Others had tried, but all had been captured and publicly executed.
In April, 1944 Vrba and Wetzler hid in a woodpile right under the guards’ noses for three days, traversed rugged and dangerous enemy terrain, and solicited the generosity of strangers. After an extraordinary 15-day trek covering 85 miles across occupied Poland, they finally reached people they thought they could help. At the Jewish Council headquarters in Zilina, Slovakia, they described the horrific activities of the Nazis at Auschwitz. Their tale was recorded in the Vrba-Wetzler Report, which they assumed would be distributed to the proper authorities, who would then force the Germans to stop the deportations and executions. The report was indeed sent to Allies around the world. But to Vrba’s horror, some copies took months to arrive in the right hands, and the most urgent copy was suppressed by Rudolph Kastner, head of the Hungarian Jewish underground, who worried it would destroy a deal he was trying to make with the Nazis. Kastner’s deal eventually saved about 1600 Jews on his “train to freedom,” but according to Vrba and others, the suppression of the report resulted in hundreds of thousands more being deported to the gas chambers. The Jews of Europe needed outside assistance, but by then, Vrba and Wetzler had all but given up hope that their report would ever trigger a coordinated Allied response. Copies had been sent to the British, Americans and even the Pope, but nothing had happened. Then, in June of 1944, a copy of the report made its way to British Intelligence. It confirmed growing Allied suspicions that the Nazis were murdering millions of Jews. The document was immediately forwarded to top British and American officials. On June 15th, the BBC broadcast the horrific details of the report. Five days later, extracts were published in The New York Times. The Nazi secret was finally out. America’s first official response was to threaten reprisals against anyone involved in the Hungarian deportations. The Vatican added the Pope’s condemnation. But despite the Allied pressure, Admiral Horthy, the Hungarian head of state and puppet to Hitler, allowed the deportations to continue. On July 2nd, the US Air Force attacked Budapest, raining bombs on the Hungarian capital. Horthy believed the raid was punishment for his refusal to stop the deportations. But in fact, the timing was a complete coincidence. The trains ground to a halt. Three hundred thousand Hungarian Jews had already been sent to the gas chambers, but instantly, one hundred and twenty thousand others were saved, seventy five times more than the number rescued by Rudolph Kastner’s freedom train. An estimated one-and-a-half million prisoners were killed at Auschwitz in less than five years. But according to historian Sir Martin Gilbert, Vrba’s and Wetzler’s efforts were “the largest single rescue of Jews in the second World War.” |
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As the Nazis expanded their reign of terror across Europe, more and more unaware Jews were deported to Auschwitz. The prisoners were forced to expand the camp, making room for the ever-more-frequent cattle trucks overfilled with frightened souls. In 1943, after witnessing the methodical and swift extermination of thousands of Czech Jews and hearing rumors that the Jews of Hungary would be next, Vrba and Wetzler knew they had to break out and tell people not to get on the trains. “It was (Vrba’s) desire to warn the world about this new stage of the Final Solution,” says historian David Ceserani in the film. “The destruction of the Jews of Hungary gave urgency to his determination to escape…that drove him on.”
A footnote: Rudolph Vrba told H.G. Wells of the genocide — but Wells believed, in effect, the Jews were responsible for their own deaths. Reb Vrba did not realise what others knew: Wells was an English antisemite who embraced the exterminationist ethos permeating Europe since the Middle Ages. Moreover, the Allies (the U.S. government had officials who supported the Reich’s slaughters) knew the Jews were being exterminated even BEFORE the Vrba/Wetzler testimony — and, as Elie Wiesel and others have observed, ‘the world remained silent’. Noone should think the genocide was suddenly news in 1944.
STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
why don’t you people show escape from Auschwitz several times instead of just once Wed at 8pm?
how about the courage to reply?
Dagmar Wertheim -
On June 6, 1944, Ceslav Mordowicz (my father) and Arnost Rozin – 2 Jews who escaped from Auschwitz on May 27, 2944, crossed the border from occupoed Poland to Slovakia. Their testimony given to the Jewish community in Slovakia, validated the earlier Vrba / Wetzler testimony and was incoporated into the Auchwitz Reprot referred to in the documentary. The authorship of the report presented in the documentary should have been credited to all 4 escapees!
Following the completion of the reprot by all four escapees, Mordowicz and Vrba met with the Vatican Nunzio, after which the reprot was sent out to the Red Cross. It needs to be noted that the Mordowicz / Rozin contribution to the report was the factual testimony which validated the Hungarian transports, as the Vrba / Wetzler testimony was given before the Hungarin transports acually arrived in Auschwitz.
The heroism of Vrba / Wetzler and Mordowicz / Rozin is undeniable,
It was my prividelge to personally know Vrba, Wetzler and Rozin, with all of whom my family stayed in touch as long as they were alive.
It needs to be noted that the producres should have researched furher and credited the authorship of the report to all 4 escapees instead of singling out Vrba.
A less edited discssion by professor Gilbert or evena simple read of Gilberts book the “Holocaust” would have revealed the correct information and facts.
Dagmar Wertheim, nee Mordowicz – Toronto, Canada
Thanks for this amplification. It explains something for me.
I was left with some questions following the PBS account of the Slovakian Council’s disbelief of Vrba’s verbal report, such as, “How did they come to request a written report?”, or did the written documentation follow unsolicited?
Another comment: The Nazi’s burned 200 Jews alive in a synagogue in Bedzin, Poland, just a week after beginning the invasion of Poland in September 1939. This shocking event, even in the context of war, must have made clear that war for the Nazis meant mass murder of Jews.
As a correction to my 30 April 2008 note, after going through my files: it was Jan Karski who met with H.G. Wells, not Rudolf Vrba. Karski was well aware of the Rudolf Vrba/Wetzler report after he met with Wells (as was Wells before his death). Karski, and so many others, did much to describe the slaughters. Wells, of course, remained a protonazi (his scifi is riddled with antisemitic, exterminationist propoganda). Perhaps, now would be the time for a re-examination of Schindler (his wife did much of the ’saving’). Perhaps, Roman Polanski will break his silence (his father was part of the Schindler groups) in light of the fact that THE PIANIST is a whitewash of a self-hating musician who refused to go to Eretz Yisroel and share his music. Schindler remains an enigmatic contradictory figure.
STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
A fascinating subject; well done!! An important story to be told.
What about the Polish People they too have suffered and we do have survivors who have survived the “Concentration Camps”?
Please show this again as I had missed it and would like to view it.
Typical shoddy work when it comes to the Holocaust. I found an egregious error a month or 2 ago on the US Holocaust Museum Website FAQs. It stated that a few HUNDRED prisoners a day were killed at Auschwitz. I had to call them and tell them didn’t they mean THOUSANDS a day. They basically gave me the run- around, told me I was full of it, but I noticed they took the information down right away. I guess you can’t trust any one source to be accurate. I am especially grateful to learn about Wells being an antisemetic pig and to learn about the other two heros who escaped to warn an uncaring unheeding world!This program needs to be redone to include the correct information. To be less than accurate is an insult to the millions who died at the hands of the criminal regime that was the Nazis.
well done story !! perhaps we should remember how apathy is so dangerous……….remember rwanda and save darfur!
It is a great sotry and it should lots of infermation on world war 2
Wonderful job. I wish that I could access the information sooner.
I watched this PBS Presentation with such attention and wish I could view it again.it taught me alot about the situation in Auschwitz and the extermination of these innocent people.I am very interested in this part of History and am also looking for some movies that tell the story as it was.I may purchase this DVD for future viewing.Thanks again for offering this to the viewers.