From Nine to Noon on Radio NZ…
In 1944, a young Slovakian man achieved the near impossible – he escaped the horrors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Walter Rosenberg, later known as Rudolf Vrba, was desperate to warn the world about Nazi camps and spur global leaders into action.
His poignant and important tale is told in new detail by journalist Jonathan Freedland in the new book The Escape Artist.
The story begins in 1942 when teenager Walter Rosenberg receives a letter saying he is to be deported from his homeland of Slovakia, Freedland tells Nine to Noon.
“Slovakia at that time was not German-occupied but was under a Fascist government that almost prided itself on being more Nazi than the Nazis.
“[The country] was pursuing vicious anti-Jewish measures, and that culminated in 1942 with a letter dropped on the doormat telling the 17-year-old Walter Rosenberg to meet at a certain time on a certain day in order to be deported.”
Rosenberg, however, had other ideas and escaped before he was eventually rounded up by the Nazis and deported.
Read the full story on Radio NZ here, or listen to the interview on Radio NZ here.
