(Jewish Group) They fled the hell of Auschwitz, but that was not the only catastrophe they faced
Only four people, out of the millions who were transported to the Nazi killing camp at Oświęcim in Occupied Poland, managed to escape. Jonathan Freedland’s “The Escape Artist” aims to tell the now relatively unknown story of how, in April 1944 — after around 1.75 million Jews had been slaughtered in front of their eyes — Walter Rosenberg and Alfred Wetzler were the first to escape.
Their story has been told several times over the years — by them and others. The reasons that it has been repeatedly ignored and forgotten are among those prompting Freedland to tell it again. Freedland recounts Rosenberg’s experiences and his dawning recognition of what the Nazis were doing and how it depended on obscuring the truth.
“As he worked,” Freedland writes, “he only became more convinced that he had understood the Nazis correctly. A smooth process of destruction was what the SS wanted and, for that, absolute, watertight ignorance was a prerequisite.”
Rosenberg didn’t just escape to save himself — in order to defy the Nazis and save lives, he wanted to bring truth to the world.
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