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Auschwitz Escape is a riveting novel by best-selling
author Joel C. Rosenberg. Using the Holocaust as a backdrop,
the story becomes a psychological, political, and historical
thriller intertwined with the mystery of how the concentration
camp victims will escape and whether they will survive. As
Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed on April 28th, readers
can reflect on this powerful story that is about the choices
made in the course of one’s life.
Through the contrast of the characters, Rosenberg highlights
the different attitudes and reactions of those involved in
this nightmarish part of history. The unlikely hero is a shy,
obedient, seventeen year old German Jew, Jacob Weisz. He is
caught in the middle of an on-going argument between his father
and his uncle. His father represented those Jews who never
faced up to the realities, instead coming up with rationalizations,
even though there were enough warning signs to go around.
On the other hand, Jacob’s Uncle Avi saw the dangers,
and constantly tried to get his brother’s family to
leave before it was too late. Avi, a part of the Jewish resistance
movement, refused to be submissive and saw it as his duty
to help Jews escape.
The author stated that the German Jews, as with those on the
9/11 flights, rationalized their predicament. He wants his
readers to remember that Jews were used to violent anti-Semitism,
just not on the level of the horrificness of the extermination
camps such as the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Just as the 9/11
victims accepted their hijacking but had no idea they would
die in such a gruesome manner, Rosenberg noted, “Jacob
is like one of those on the United 9/11 flight that went down
in Pennsylvania. They fought back because they heard what
happened to the other planes. Jacob saw what was happening
in the camps and knew he had to take some action. He, as with
the United passengers, had to make a life and death decision
by using his wits. All knew that if they did nothing they
would die anyway so why not fight for their freedom.”
Readers are taken on a journey with Jacob’s character
from having to endure the German anti-Semitic laws to entering
and surviving Auschwitz. It is based on the April 7, 1944,
true escape by Rudolf Vrba, aka Rudolf Rosenberg, and Alfred
Wetzler followed by the May 27th, 1944 escape of Arnost Rosin
and Czeslaw Mordowicz. As with the real escapees, Jacob writes
an eyewitness report, “The Auschwitz Protocol,”
detailing the extermination camps and the threat to the Hungarian
Jews. Although 300,000 Hungarian Jews were killed it is believed
that 120,000 were saved.
Rosenberg commented, “There were approximately 800
attempts with about one hundred successes. Besides the four
true heroes there were several Polish intelligence officers,
one of which I created as a character in the book, who got
out of Auschwitz. Unfortunately, the West did not believe
their warnings, seeing it as Polish propaganda. I decided
not to use any of the real names and to write a novel because
I did not want to put words in their mouths and thoughts in
their heads as well as actions I could not verify as true.
I did not want to compromise anything so I fictionalized the
story and characters. Even Wetzler wrote his own story as
a novel at first, changing his own name in the book. I knew
I had to make sure every historical detail is rooted in reality
as much as possible. My fictional characters had to operate
in a realistic historically rooted world.”
He also points out, through his different characters, how
they all endured the same atrocities even though they had
different attitudes about religion. Jacob was a secular Jew
who questioned that if there is a G-d how could the Nazis
get away with taking away “his name, his clothes, even
his dignity. But only he could give away his will to fight.”
Contrast that with Abby Cohen, who falls in love with Jacob.
Abby isa religious Jew who did not doubt G-d, and is described
as someone thoughtful, insightful, intuitive, full of hope,
with depth and purpose. There is also the character Jean-Luc
Leclerc, a Protestant pastor, who with others living in the
French town of Le Chambon helped to rescue approximately 5000
Jews. He was eventually captured, tortured, and sent to Auschwitz
where he meets up with Jacob, becoming his partner during
the escape.
Rosenberg commented to blackfive.net, “The French
town is real along with the story. The entire village rallied
behind helping the fleeing Jews. Every single pastor was arrested
by the Gestapo, sent to the concentration camps, with at least
two murdered by the Nazis at the camps.”
Rosenberg believes no book can do the Holocaust justice, yet
The Auschwitz Escape comes close. In a suspenseful
novel with heart wrenching characters through which he is
able to individualize the six million who died. The readers
can think of the six million simply not as numbers but people
who should never be forgotten, as they form a bond both emotionally
and intellectually with the characters.
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