First published 2023
In April 1944, nineteen-year-old Rudolf Vrba faces an impossible choice inside Auschwitz. He knows the full horror of what happens in the gas chambers. He knows that hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews are about to be deported to their deaths. He also knows that almost no one has ever escaped this death camp alive. Vrba teams up with fellow prisoner Fred Wetzler to attempt the nearly impossible. They hide for days under a pile of wooden planks, then begin a desperate journey across Nazi-occupied Europe. They climb mountains, ford rivers, and dodge German patrols. Their goal is to reach the free world with a detailed report about Auschwitz that no one can deny or ignore. Vrba believes that the truth can stop mass murder. But even if they survive their escape, will anyone listen to their warnings? This is the story of a brilliant young man who understood that information could be the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of people.
Genres: holocaust, historical-fiction, 20th-century, world-war-ii
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: based-on-true-events, survival
Setting: Auschwitz, Europe
Period: 1944
416 pages · Paperback · Harper Perennial
Content warnings: death, violence