The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of genocide; starvation; systematic, state-sponsored violence and persecution; and antisemitism perpetrated by Germany and its collaborators during the Holocaust.

Jonathan Freedland’s book offers a distinctive style for telling the story of Walter Rosenberg’s escape from Auschwitz; Freedland deviates from the more conventional historical biography genre and uses his experience as an author of thriller novels to introduce elements of this genre to this nonfiction text (his thriller novels are published under the pseudonym Sam Bourne). Thrillers as a form withhold information and simultaneously seek to induce heightened emotion (e.g., feeling unsettled, nervous, or anxious) to give the text a mysterious, suspenseful tone. There are several common elements found in thrillers that Freedland deploys in The Escape Artist. Freedland begins the Prologue with Walter and Fred Wetzler’s daring attempt at escape from Auschwitz. While the text reveals that Walter and Fred at least successfully evaded the SS officers for 72 hours, Freedland does not reveal at the Prologue’s conclusion whether they made it out of Auschwitz and to the Slovak border.