Auschwitz escapee Rudolph Verba dies at 82

[IndianaGreen]

The news just broke on the Haarets news crawler, and there are no details:

23:19 Rudolph Verba, first to escape and tell of Auschwitz horror, dies at 82 (Itim)

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/

Here is a brief mention of Verba's role:

The U.S. and the Holocaust

What did the United States know?

And when did they know it?

April, 1944 — Two escapees from Auschwitz, Rudolph Verba and Alfred Wetzler, provide Jewish underground in Slovakia with full description of the death camp.

http://www.hello-newman.com/Israel/holocaust.html

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Rest in peace, Mr Verba...

To escape a concentration camp is the height of bravery (or to escape Gitmo, for that matter)...

[IndianaGreen]

2. More on Verba's role in exposing the Holocaust to the West

May 16, 1944 -- Rabbi Weissmandl sends out pleas to bomb camp and rail lines - based on his "Auschwitz Protocol" - a 31 page report from escapees' eyewitness accounts of Rudolph Verba and Alfred Wetzler.

http://www.aish.com/holocaust/headlines/1944.asp

[LostinVA]

3. HIs book, "Escape from Aucshwitz," is excellent

He was quite a young man when he did it -- not too mnay people got away from there... his escape story is like something out of a movie.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Auschwitz escapee, 82, dies in Canada (Jerusalem Post)

Apr. 1, 2006 11:37 | Updated Apr. 1, 2006 15:17

Auschwitz escapee, 82, dies in Canada

By JPOST.COM STAFF

Rudolf Vrba, one of five Jews who escaped the Auschwitz death camp during World War II, died Monday in Vancouver, Canada at age 82, Toronto's Globe and Mail reported Friday.

Vrba was born in Slovakia and was sent to the Majdanker extermination camp when he was 18. He was later transferred to Auschwitz and assigned the job of removing from freight trains the bodies of Jews who had not survived the journey. From Auschwitz, Vrba was transferred again to Birkenau, where he befriended Alfred Wetzler, a Hungarian Jewish leader.

Wetzler and Vrba faced being tortured to death if they were caught in an attempt to escape; nevertheless, the two confounded guards by hiding for three days in a space inside a pile of lumber near Birkenau's perimeter fence. In order to keep the camp dogs away, Vrba and Wetzler used a mixture of tobacco and gasoline to disguise their scent.

<snip>

In spring 1944, Vrba and Wetzler provided the Allies with a description of the Nazi killing machine that later became known as the Auschwitz Protocols.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1143498779063&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull