‘And such anger is here’

Holocaust Hero: The Life and Times of Rudolf Vrba
by Alan Twigg

Richmond Hill, ON: Firefly Books, 2025
$29.95  /  9780228105718

Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski

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Those new to the story of Rudolf Vrba will read the title Holocaust Hero, by prominent Canadian journalist Alan Twigg, as they would read a title like, say, Elvis, the King of Rock—as a reassertion of a commonly accepted recognition.  Not very far into the book, however, they may well feel there is, instead, a sense of challenge in the title: “Doubters and equivocators take note,” the title will then seem to assert, “Vrba was a hero, and more than that, a giant amongst heroes.”

As with many biographies, how this one will affect readers depends very much on previous knowledge. Most, of course, will know the basics of the Holocaust extermination camps, and especially Auschwitz, but, as Twigg repeatedly emphasizes, not many—and Canadians especially—know much about Vrba’s role in saving the lives of approximately 200,000 Jews. Thus, the book will be largely a revelation for some and, for those who have encountered contradictory claims about Vrbo’s heroism, may well be a turning point.

While fascination and admiration are common reactions to biographies, anger is not.  And creating a sense of anger seems Twigg’s second, linked intention.  Of course, in any book with the word “holocaust” in the title, anger towards the contemptible cruelties of the Nazis is to be expected.  And such anger is here.  Overpoweringly here. Less expected is anger directed towards allied power groups, and especially Jewish power groups.

As the book shows, passionately and purposefully, the Nazis were a necessary condition for the murder of 800,000 Hungarian Jews.  They were necessary, but they were not sufficient.  Also necessary was indifference, deliberate evasion —and complicity.  And it is the need to demonstrate, repeat, and reinforce these failures, along with understanding the nature of Vrba’s heroism, that is the driving force of this book.

It is not just for this reason that readers should put aside any expectation that Holocaust Hero reads like a standard biography—if by that we mean a thoroughly digested, consistently developed chronology. Tonally, the book feels driven by a kind of restless energy and, formally, often reads almost like a compendium or casebook, the same issues appearing and reappearing from different perspectives and in different contexts. The subtitle itself should partly adjust expectations: this is, after all, “The life & Times of Rudolf Vrba.”  It should not be surprising, therefore, that the book contains many sidebars on the “times”—at least in the broadest sense—however much they are interconnected by an overwhelming sense of purpose.

But it is not just a strong sense of conviction that drives the book.  It is also knowledge. Far from just reiterating well established narratives and interviews, Twigg contributes much that is new. Repeatedly, he uses phrases like,“Historians have tended to overlook” or “It is much less known that.”  At one point he reveals “new information about [Vrba’s] escape” from Auschwitz.  Perhaps most distinctively, he “provides for the first time, an investigation of his service and valour as a decorated Partisan soldier.”

Even more important is what underlies a whole chapter entitled “Why Isn’t Rudolf Vrba Already Famous?”  While drawing on interviews from prominent media like the BBC or recording such recognition as an honourary doctorate from the University of Haifa, Twigg makes clear that such recognition is too little, painfully late: he pointedly quotes one prominent writer about the Holocaust, Ruth Linn, who has continuously alleged that Vrba “has been made Invisible by major Holocaust institutions….”

Even in its purely biographical sections, this book counteracts that invisibility. The initial chapters give a vivid sense of Vrba’s remarkable early years. At 17, Vrba, born Walter Rosenberg, as a Slovakian Jew was forbidden to attend school. Attempting to join the resistance, he was arrested and sent to Majdanek, a concentration camp. Transferring to Auschwitz I, and narrowly evading death several times, he was later moved to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the ultimate death camp.  After an astounding range of different experiences and roles, he, along with a slightly older man, Alfréd Wetzler, escaped.  Desperate to reveal the true nature of Auschwitz to the last large surviving European Jewish population, the 800,000 Jews of Hungary, he and Wetzler wrote a joint report. Leaving the report to do its work, he joined the partisan army, where he earned medals for bravery. His remaining years, including his academic achievements, his marriages, and the 30 years he spent in Vancouver until his death, will be the substance of a promised second volume.

Crucial to establishing an appreciation of Vrba beyond these facts is the author’s reliable authority.  Reporting on having read 120 books related to the Holocaust and countless articles, as well as having visited museums, he buttresses this sense of his knowledge by often providing almost dizzying facts: “According to the Terezín Ghetto Museum, Alice Munk was commandeered to be on Transport Ch, No. 173 9 December 17, Hradec Králové Terezín.”

Further to impress on his readers the reliability of his version of events, he is given to using phrases like “This information was confirmed” or, more vehemently, to make assertions like “It is nearly impossible for any relatively sane person not to believe it must be true.”

The sense of the judiciousness of his writing is further underlined by his insistence on avoiding simple truths. Thus, for example, he will make statements like “It is generally assumed”, but insist “the truth is more complex.”  Phrases like “the truth is more complicated,” or “a controversy persists to this day,” can even extend to his acknowledging “A complex and disturbing story that cannot be adequately discussed here.” At his most vehement he may state directly, “this was true,” or, even more, that his evidence “squelches any claims” of denialists.

Most important, though, is not just Twigg’s voice. Those who are familiar with his “one million word” website, or who turn to it, will find how many of the materials in this book—and many more—appear there.  More specifically, along with his own writing, Twigg includes large chunks directly in Vrba’s voice, particularly affecting when they have the authentic ring of a man who spoke many languages but for whom English was not a first language. Quotations from other historians, from the “Vrba-Wetzler Report,” and from interviews, for example, create a daunting array of diverse, positive voices: “Ruth Davis of the Czech and Slovaka Jewish Communities Archive states the Vrba-Wetzler Report ought to be credited with saving 200,000 lives, a figure endorsed by historian Sir Martin Gilbert….This has since become the standard estimate.”

Amongst these external references, two are particularly compelling. First are the photocopies of letters. One, to Jimmy Carter, shows Vrba requesting the US President to intervene in preventing public SS meetings in Germany.  The startling visual impact of these original letters allows Vrba’s voice and personality to rise from the page.  Most striking, though, is the photocopy of a letter from the Executive Office of the President, War Refugee Board and dated Nov. 1944: “The Board has every reason to believe that these reports present a true picture of the frightful happenings in these camps.”   “…they should be read and understood by all Americans.”  It is hard to see how Vrba’s skeptics, in the face of such visually powerful documents, would not be affected.

Perhaps the star role in Twigg’s materials is interview materials from Vrba’s second wife, Robin. One line in particular stands out: “If you don’t tell me nobody’s ever going to know!” The value of Robin’s words about her husband are deepened by the fact that she comes across as herself a remarkable person, unpretentious, quick to laugh, and nuanced.

The veracity and authority Twigg accrues is balanced by his sheer range of knowledge beyond biography, a reminder that the book is not just a “life” but also “times.” Some sidebars create a portrait of a secondary character or provide social background. The latter chapters are especially broad in scope. Some, like the one titled “Alfréd and Eta Wetzler” have little directly to do with Vrba. Others, like Appendix 2, provide different perspectives. A horrifyingly detailed account of Auschwitz, this appendix is implicitly an endorsement of Vrba’s own claims about the true nature of the extermination awaiting the Jews of Hungary.

Above all, in building the case for Vrba as a “Holocaust hero,” Twigg focuses in detail on the 19-year-old’s most impressive actions. Even superficially, as Twigg shows, these are astounding. The introduction alone lists 25 “near death experiences”—many of which, even singly, could be the stuff of an entire chapter.  However, among the incidents in and out of Auschwitz that crowd the book, two seem most to have attracted misinformation and controversy and thrown doubt on Vrba—his escape from Auschwitz and the “Vrba-Wetzler Report.”

It is not incidental that Twigg has chosen to call the chapter dealing with the escape “How Vrba Really Escaped.” Nor is it incidental that the first words in the chapter declare it to be “The most important escape of World War II….”  Importantly, though, far from exaggerating Vrba’s role in the escape, Twigg is scrupulous about putting Vrba’s escape into the context of other escapes and other prisoners.  He is aware, too, that readers may well have encountered films or novels based on (and distortions of) the escape. (The Auschwitz Report and Escape from Auschwitz, for example, are still on streaming services.) The novel written by Wetzler on the topic Twigg describes as “a mishmash of imagination and truth.”  In contrast, he places at the beginning of his book a short, sharp piece on the escape called “A Note for Historians.”  For Twigg, facts matter.

The second major event involving Vrba, and the one where controversy and dissent have produced more problematic real world consequences is the “Vrba-Wetzler Report.” Here several factors play into Twigg’s analysis in establishing the report’s overwhelming importance. First is the duplicity of the Nazis. He is careful to show how in many, many grotesque ways the Nazis attempted to mask the true nature of the camps.  Thus, the significance of the unmasking is all the more monumental. Quoting the historian Martin Gilbert, he writes, “Deception was the feature of the Nazi intention at every phase of the destruction of European Jewry.”

A second, complex factor in determining the level of Vrba’s achievement, is the way the report is worded.  Written under the strict supervision of the Slovak Jewish Council, the report uses “dry, nearly scientific language” and, importantly, sticks only to facts, avoiding predictions or warnings. As it turned out, and as Twigg carefully records, these qualities, for some, unleashed criticisms and skeptical speculations — all of which he meets head on, all of which he convincingly demolishes.

The third, and most disturbing factor relating to the report is how it was used. This is where the book is both most complexly detailed and most disturbing. Three separate chapters handle the report and its fate, perhaps most pungently summed up by the chapter title “Failures to Act.” The various power figures involved in reading and disseminating, or suppressing, dismissing, and failing to act on the report, in Twigg’s hands, make for the most gripping and disturbing part of the book. 

It is his use of Vrba’s own words that cuts most tellingly:

Our warning, however, never reached the general Jewish population of Hungary.  Instead, more than 400,000 of them passively boarded the trains, and more than 99% of them arrived in Auschwitz believing that their families are moved to “resettlement areas”.  As we well know, all these masses of people from Hungary died in Auschwitz in May and June, 1944.  This was possible only because of the deliberate suppression of our Report by the Jewish Councils, in the interest of the so-called “negotiations” with the Nazis undertaken by the Jewish leaders in Hungary.

Controlled in recording the objections and counterarguments to Vrba’s claims, Twigg nevertheless has established such a firm sense of his own authority and knowledge that it is hard not to feel that most readers, like Twigg himself, will be deeply affected by Vrba’s words.

For some, though, the final brick in creating the edifice of Vrba’s deserved recognition, is his personality. Here Twigg is careful to let the impression of this remarkable man emerge slowly, largely through others’ words. The most persistent accusation against Vrba, that, due to his youth, he was “hot headed” is the one that Twigg himself is most concerned—convincingly—to debunk.  As for the many others who met him, what they repeatedly affirm was his “intelligence,” “sardonic humour,” “charisma,” and, above all, his “nurturing” and “compassionate” feeling for others.  What more, most readers must feel, could they want in a “hero”?

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Theo Dombrowski grew up in Port Alberni and studied at UVic and later in Nova Scotia and London, England. With a doctorate in English literature, he returned to teach at Royal Roads, UVic, and finally Lester Pearson College in Metchosin. He also studied painting and drawing at Banff School of Fine Arts and UVic. He lives at Nanoose Bay. Visit his website here. [Editor’s note: Theo has written and illustrated several coastal guides, including Secret Beaches of the Salish Sea, Seaside Walks of Vancouver Island, Family Walks and Hikes of Vancouver Island, and, recently, Family Walks and Hikes of Vancouver Island, Volume 2: Nanaimo North to Strathcona Park (reviewed by Amy Tucker), as well as When Baby Boomers Retire. He has reviewed books by Ian Williams, Jason A.N. Taylor, Tim Bowling, Stephen L. Howard, Michael Whatling, and Frank Wolf for The British Columbia Review.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

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