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The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland

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The Escape Artist

Author
Jonathan Freedland
Narrator
Jonathan Freedland
Publisher
John Murray Press
Publish Date
9 June 2022
Run Time
11 hours 47 minutes
Format
Audiobook
Genre
Second World War, Military history
Rating
5.0 (2 reviews)

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What to expect

The astonishing, forgotten story of the hero who escaped from Auschwitz to reveal the truth of the Holocaust.

In April 1944 a teenager named Rudolf Vrba was planning a daring and unprecedented escape from Auschwitz. After hiding in a pile of timber planks for three days while 3,000 SS men and their bloodhounds searched for him, Vrba and his fellow escapee Fred Wetzler would eventually cross Nazi-occupied Poland on foot, as penniless fugitives. Their mission: to tell the world the truth of the Final Solution.

Vrba would produce from memory a breathtaking report of more than thirty pages revealing the true nature and scale of Auschwitz - a report that would find its way to Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope, eventually saving over 200,000 Jewish lives.

A thrilling history with enormous historical implications, THE ESCAPE ARTIST is the extraordinary story of a complex man who would seek escape again and again: first from Auschwitz, then from his past, even from his own name. In telling his story, Jonathan Freedland - the journalist, broadcaster and acclaimed, multi-million copy selling author of the Sam Bourne novels - ensures that Rudolf Vrba's heroic mission will also escape oblivion.

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critics Review

  • Excellent . . . thrilling . . . Freedland's book is rich in the kind of details that haunt you long after you have turned the last page

    Sunday Times


  • A brilliant and heart-wrenching book, with universal and timely lessons about the power of information - and misinformation

    Yuval Noah Harari


  • A magnificent book. I could scarcely breathe at some points. What a tribute to its extraordinary hero, and it's such an important and necessary story to read . . . I can't praise it too highly. What an achievement

    Philip Pullman


  • An immediate classic of Holocaust literature. Superbly researched and written, it is both a gripping story and deeply moving, I literally could not put it down

    Antony Beevor

See more reviews

  • Immersive, shattering, and, ultimately redemptive . . . An epic of terror and endurance . . . Written with Freedland's page-turning, gripping, hard-edged immediacy, The Escape Artist is profound in thought, boundless in humanity, an immediate modern classic

    Simon Schama


  • Awe-inspiring, exciting and poignant, this is a thrilling read, a piece of redemptive storytelling and a work of important Holocaust historical research: Freedland has given Rudolf Vrba his rightful place in history - and in the process written a book that I couldn't put down

    Simon Sebag Montefiore


  • The Escape Artist is marvellous. It is original, meticulous and utterly compelling - and ultimately a deeply tragic tale

    Philippe Sands


  • A must-read stand-out piece of history . . . This is Freedland at his finest . . . It is both a celebration of the extraordinary will, courage and resilience of the hero - Rudi Vrba - and an all too prescient warning of how hard it is to wake up the world to things it would prefer not to see

    Emily Maitlis


  • A work of the highest quality about an astonishing man. It is gripping from start to finish, searingly, shocking, revelatory and deeply moving - the more so because there is no false note, no striving for effect. The research is prodigious and the complexities deftly woven into the narrative . . . A profoundly troubling and important work

    Jonathan Dimbleby


  • A masterpiece of page-turning history: an escape story that is also a fearless exploration of some of the most profound questions that face humanity. Rudolf Vrba's extraordinary testimony will deepen your understanding of the Holocaust - and compel you to think afresh about our own times, and the role of truth, denial and fragile memory. Magisterial

    Matthew d'Ancona


  • The story of Vrba's escape from Auschwitz, exquisitely told by Jonathan Freedland, soars like a thriller. Exhilarating, deeply moving and historically important

    Simon Parkin


  • Powerful, important, compelling and superbly told. This is a book that needs to be read

    Bart van Es, bestselling author of The Cut Out Girl


  • An indispensable, unflinching, bone-hard book. Compelling reading

    Howard Jacobson


  • I read it with my heart beating fast, full of horror, rage, despair - and admiration for this potent demonstration of the stubborn resilience of the human spirit

    Tracy Chevalier


  • Brilliant

    Julia Neuberger


  • Meticulously researched . . . shocking but thrilling, and ultimately overwhelmingly inspiring

    Daily Mail


  • Astonishing . . . An indispensable part of Holocaust history . . . Gripping

    Guardian


  • An utterly gripping narrative, incorporating a restrained though harrowing picture of life in Auschwitz and a kind of heroic adventure story

    Observer


  • Such an important piece of history . . . This dramatic, compelling and deeply sensitive account raises issues around courage, agency and the credibility of facts that still resonate today

    'Books of the Year', The Spectator


  • This really is an extraordinary book

    The Times

User Reviews

Book 5.0

Narration 4.5

  • No written reviews yet.

Details
Author
Jonathan Freedland
Narrator
Jonathan Freedland
Duration
11 hours 47 minutes
Release Date
9 June 2022
ISBN
9781529369083
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
John Murray Press
Genre
Second World War, Military history
Rating
5.0(2 reviews)
Narration
4.5(2 reviews)

Synopsis

The astonishing, forgotten story of the hero who escaped from Auschwitz to reveal the truth of the Holocaust.In April 1944 a teenager named Rudolf Vrba was planning a daring and unprecedented escape from Auschwitz. After hiding in a pile of timber planks for three days while 3,000 SS men and their bloodhounds searched for him, Vrba and his fellow escapee Fred Wetzler would eventually cross Nazi-occupied Poland on foot, as penniless fugitives. Their mission: to tell the world the truth of the Final Solution.Vrba would produce from memory a breathtaking report of more than thirty pages revealing the true nature and scale of Auschwitz - a report that would find its way to Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope, eventually saving over 200,000 Jewish lives.A thrilling history with enormous historical implications, THE ESCAPE ARTIST is the extraordinary story of a complex man who would seek escape again and again: first from Auschwitz, then from his past, even from his own name. In telling his story, Jonathan Freedland - the journalist, broadcaster and acclaimed, multi-million copy selling author of the Sam Bourne novels - ensures that Rudolf Vrba's heroic mission will also escape oblivion.(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

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