Escaping Auschwitz
Escaping Auschwitz: a culture of forgetting Ruth Linn,
Publisher: Ithaca, N.Y. ; Cornell University Press, 2004.
ISBN: 0801441307
DDC: 940.5318
LCC: D804.3
Edition: (cloth : alk. paper)
Summary:
"On 7 April 1944 a Slovakian Jew, Rudolf Vrba (born Walter
Rosenberg), and a fellow prisoner, Alfred Wetzler, succeeded in
escaping from Auschwitz-Birkenau. As block registrars both men had
been allowed relative (though always risky) freedom of movement in
the camp and thus had been able to observe the massive preparations
underway at Birkenau of the entire killing machine for the
eradication of Europe's last remaining Jewish community, the 800,000
Jews of Hungary. The two men somehow made their way back to Slovakia
where they sought out the Jewish Council (Judenrat) to warn them of
the impending disaster." "The Vrba-Wetzler report was the first
document about the Auschwitz death camp to reach the free world and
to be accepted as credible. Its authenticity broke the barrier of
skepticism and apathy that had existed up to that point. However,
though their critical and alarming assessment was in the hands of
Hungarian Jewish leaders by April 28 or early May 1944, it is
doubtful that the information it contained reached more than just a
small part of the prospective victims - during May and June 1944,
about 437,000 Hungarian Jews boarded, in good faith, the
"resettlement" trains that were to carry them off to Auschwitz, where
most of them were gassed on arrival." "Vrba, who emigrated to Canada
at war's end, published his autobiography in England nearly forty
years ago. Yet his and Wetzler's story has been carefully kept from
Israel's Hebrew-reading public and appears nowhere in any of the
history texts that are part of the official curriculum." "In 1998
Linn arranged for publication of the first Hebrew edition of Vrba's
memoirs. In Escaping Auschwitz she establishes the chronology of
Vrba's disappearance not only from Auschwitz but also from the
Israeli Holocaust narrative, exposing how the official Israeli
historiography of the Holocaust has sought to suppress the
story."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-152) and index.
Pt. 1.Between Auschwitz and Manhattan: Vrba meets Arendt --Pt.
2.Between Auschwitz and Jerusalem: Vrba silenced --Pt. 3.Between
history and memory: Vrba questions --Pt. 4.Between banality and
politics: Vrba and Arendt restaged.
Language: eng
Physical Description: viii, 154 p. ; 22 cm.
Edition Info: (cloth : alk. paper)
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