Review: The Auschwitz Escape

[khamneithang]

The Auschwitz Escape by New York Times bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg is an incredible work of historical fiction about a daring escape from the Nazis. It is Rosenberg's most stirring and deeply moving work to date, based on actual events that took place seventy years ago. It is the poignant tale of two young men arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp in southern Poland.

The Auschwitz Escape opens in the small, quiet community of Sedan, France on May 13, 1940. The book is about two young men who find themselves in one of the most horrifying places that you can think of - Auschwitz. The very mention of the name sends a shiver down one's spines. Holed up in a place that only spells doom, these most improbable of friends are determined to work out a daring and extremely risky plan to escape. Jean-Luc Leclerc, a French Protestant assistant pastor, who is sentenced to the Auschwitz death camp for helping Jews, joins forces with Jacob Weisz, a young seventeen-year-old Jewish boy sent to the camp after his attempt to hijack a train bound for Auschwitz fails. Their mission: to announce to a skeptical world about the pogrom implemented under Hitler's Germany.

Will the two men manage to escape from the concentration camp? Even if they managed to escape, will they succeed in their mission to tell about the Holocaust? The Auschwitz Escape is not only a superbly crafted work of historical fiction but also has sprinkling of historical events all over.

The release of the book couldn't have been timed more appropriately as it coincides with a lot of things in recent times. The US House of Representatives Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, earlier this year visited the Auschwitz death camp in Poland along with a group of Israeli lawmakers. He urged Americans to learn the lessons of Auschwitz. Hillary Clinton, former US Secretary of State, compared Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler in the wake of recent events. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not to be left behind. He said today's Iranian regime resembles Nazi Germany. Is it a coincidence? Perhaps, it is more than that. The book is urging today's complacent and smug society to turn back the clock and learn lessons from history.

But do we have the courage?

[gali]

Sounds like an important book to read and I agree with its messages.

Thank you for the interesting review.