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| '''Rudolf Vrba''' (], ] – ], ]) was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the ] in ]. He came to public attention for being one of only five ]s known to have escaped from the death camp at ], and for the report he and fellow escapee ] subsequently gave the ] of what was happening in the camp, the first detailed report to reach the West. Although its release to the ] leadership was delayed until after the mass transport of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz had begun, the report — which became known as the ''Auschwitz Protocols'' — is nevertheless credited with having saved 100,000 lives. | '''Rudolf Vrba''' (], ] – ], ]) was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the ] in ]. He came to public attention for being one of only five ]s known to have escaped from the death camp at ], and for the report he and fellow escapee ] subsequently gave the ] of what was happening in the camp, the first detailed report to reach the West. Although its release to the ] leadership was delayed until after the mass transport of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz had begun, the report — which became known as the ''Auschwitz Protocols'' — is nevertheless credited with having saved 100,000 lives. | ||
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| ==Arrest and escape== | ==Arrest and escape== | ||
| Born '''Walter Rosenberg''' in ], Vrba was arrested in 1942 while he was trying to flee to England and was sent to the ] camp. Later he was transferred to Auschwitz, where |
Born '''Walter Rosenberg''' in ], Vrba was arrested in 1942 while he was trying to flee to England and was sent to the ] camp. Later he was transferred to Auschwitz, where from August 1942 until June 1943, he worked in what was called "Kanada," the camp's name for the work detail that sorted the possessions confiscated from arriving prisoners, and dealt with the dead bodies among them. | ||
| From the main camp, Vrba was later sent to the death camp at Birkenau, but on arrival he was chosen to work rather than be sent to the gas chambers. By April 1944, he had calculated that around 1.7 million Jews had already been killed in the death camps, and had overhead guards discussing how another "million units" were about to arrive from Hungary. | |||
| Vrba and another Slovak Jew, Alfred Wetzler, decided to escape, and hid for four days between the inner and outer perimeter fences, masking their scent from the dogs using tobacco soaked in gasoline. They knew from previous escape attempts by other prisoners that, once their absence was noticed, the guards would search the outer area of the fences for three days. The men therefore remained in hiding between the fences until the night of the third day, and then made their way to the Sola River, using a page torn from a child's atlas they had found inside Birkenau. | |||
| Once they'd crossed the Slovakian border, they traveled straight to the Slovak Jewish Council to tell them what was happening inside the camps, dictating a detailed 40-page report on every aspect of the Auschwitz camp and its workings. The report was initially sent to Slovakia, Hungary, and Switzerland, reaching the British and U.S. governments by the middle of 1944, when it received wide publicity. | |||
| At the beginning of July, the international outcry caused by the report apparently played a major part in the decision of the Hungarian leader ] to halt the deportation of the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. Thus, Vrba and Wetzler are widely given credit for saving about 100,000 lives. | |||
| After the war, Vrba spent time in ], ] and ] before settling in ] as a Professor of ] and ] at the University of British Columbia. | After the war, Vrba spent time in ], ] and ] before settling in ] as a Professor of ] and ] at the University of British Columbia. | ||
Revision as of 07:18, 1 April 2006
Rudolf Vrba (11 September, 1924 – March 27, 2006) was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia in Canada. He came to public attention for being one of only five Jews known to have escaped from the death camp at Auschwitz, and for the report he and fellow escapee Alfred Wetzler subsequently gave the Allies of what was happening in the camp, the first detailed report to reach the West. Although its release to the Hungarian leadership was delayed until after the mass transport of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz had begun, the report — which became known as the Auschwitz Protocols — is nevertheless credited with having saved 100,000 lives.
On the news of Vrba's death from cancer at the age of 82, Ruth Linn, dean of education at Haifa University and author of Escaping Auschwitz: A Culture of Forgetting, a book about Vrba's experiences, called him an "exemplary courageous hero and warrior," and said: "We have lost a rare history maker that the history tellers are yet to find the right words to describe" (The Globe and Mail, March 31, 2006).
Arrest and escape
Born Walter Rosenberg in Slovakia, Vrba was arrested in 1942 while he was trying to flee to England and was sent to the Majdanek camp. Later he was transferred to Auschwitz, where from August 1942 until June 1943, he worked in what was called "Kanada," the camp's name for the work detail that sorted the possessions confiscated from arriving prisoners, and dealt with the dead bodies among them.
From the main camp, Vrba was later sent to the death camp at Birkenau, but on arrival he was chosen to work rather than be sent to the gas chambers. By April 1944, he had calculated that around 1.7 million Jews had already been killed in the death camps, and had overhead guards discussing how another "million units" were about to arrive from Hungary.
Vrba and another Slovak Jew, Alfred Wetzler, decided to escape, and hid for four days between the inner and outer perimeter fences, masking their scent from the dogs using tobacco soaked in gasoline. They knew from previous escape attempts by other prisoners that, once their absence was noticed, the guards would search the outer area of the fences for three days. The men therefore remained in hiding between the fences until the night of the third day, and then made their way to the Sola River, using a page torn from a child's atlas they had found inside Birkenau.
Once they'd crossed the Slovakian border, they traveled straight to the Slovak Jewish Council to tell them what was happening inside the camps, dictating a detailed 40-page report on every aspect of the Auschwitz camp and its workings. The report was initially sent to Slovakia, Hungary, and Switzerland, reaching the British and U.S. governments by the middle of 1944, when it received wide publicity.
At the beginning of July, the international outcry caused by the report apparently played a major part in the decision of the Hungarian leader Admiral Miklos Horthy to halt the deportation of the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. Thus, Vrba and Wetzler are widely given credit for saving about 100,000 lives.
After the war, Vrba spent time in Czechoslovakia, England and Israel before settling in Canada as a Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia.
Controversy
The Vrba-Wetzler report was in the hands of the Hungarian Jewish leadership in late April or early May 1944, but few of those 437,000 Jews sent from Hungary to Auschwitz in the following month knew what was in store for them; nor, apparently, did the Hungarian government. The circumstances surrounding this have been the topic of a bitter debate ever since (see Rudolf Kasztner).
Vrba was one of those who accused the Hungarian Jewish leadership — and even the Slovak Jewish leadership, which are rarely so accused — of squandering the opportunity given by the report to save a very large number of lives. His biographer Linn believes that Vrba's stance on this issue has led to the memory of his heroism being actively suppressed.
Sources
- Bauer, Yehuda. Jews for Sale? Nazi–Jewish Negotiations 1933–1945 (Yale University Press, 1994).
- Hume, Mark. "Auschwitz escapee who told the world dies in B.C.", The Globe and Mail, March 31, 2006
- Linn, Ruth. Escaping Auschwitz: A Culture of Forgetting. Ithaca, New York:Cornell University Press, 2004, 176 pages.
- Linn, Ruth, Genocide and the politics of remembering: the nameless, the celebrated, and the would-be Holocaust heroes, Journal of Genocide Research (2003), 565–586.
- Proudfoot, Shannon (31 March 2006). Auschwitz escapee alerted world to horrors of the Holocaust. Ottawa Citizen