The Escape Artist Audiobook By Jonathan Freedland cover art

The Escape Artist

The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World

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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.

©2022 Jonathan Freedland (P)2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited 20th Century Biographies & Memoirs Military Modern Wars & Conflicts World War II
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This is a terrific book and I would recommend it to everyone. Not only is it extremely well written, highly engaging and historically very important, it also reveals many aspects of the human condition which are essential to understanding why humans behave in the manner they do.

Best book I’ve read this year

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A story that needs to be heard. Incredible from the beginning to the end. Highly recommend.

Heart breaking story- incredibly detailed and writ

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Detailed, and beautifully woven telling of a difficult story (to put it lightly). Particularly enjoyed the discussion regarding the various moral choices and the difference between having information versus knowing and acting on something.

Tragic, brave and poignant

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I usually don’t like it when authors read their own books but Freedland is as good or better than any audible narrator I’ve ever listened to.

This is a really compelling read. I am a bit wary of Holocaust themed books but I’m a big Jonathan Freedland fan so I decided to go for it and I’m glad I did. I devoured it in just a few days. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Highly recommended

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This book has given me a whole new perspective to the meaning of life. To how we should value just being alive and being able to live through the basics, appreciating each and every day you wake up alive.

Amazing and enlightening!

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