Impossible Escape: A True Story of Survival and Heroism in Nazi Europe

Steve Sheinkin weaves WW2 history and stunning personal details from first hand accounts of the murder machine in Auschwitz. He unravels several first hand accounts to provide a 360 experience of living through the brutality of the infamous concentration camp in a page turning tail of endurance, courage and survival. A must for those who have not confronted the reality of the Holocaust's human cruelty or learned of the heartbreaking moments of human kindness that allowed Rudi Vrba to inform the world of the horrors. A triumph in story telling and narrative non-fiction. I could not put it down.

My mother was in the Auschwitz work camps for two year #51060 and my father was in many other work camps. I have read many books on the Holocaust, but none of them were able to convey to me what my parents must have gone through. Steve Sheinkin has the ability to describe the events of those years better than any other that I have read. I finally understood my parents horrors and why they rarely spoke about them. Almost everyone in my extended family from our eleven year old grandson to his seventy-two year old second generation survivor grandfather. We have read all of Steve's books, regardless of our ages. Keep up the good writing.The second and third generation survivors

An extremely well-written book. An intense and challenging story to tell. I couldn’t stop reading.

Every time I think I've got a good knowledge base on the horrors and realities of the holocaust, I read a new book and realize there is just so much I don't know. A person could probably read a 100 stories and not even make a dent in what there is to learn about this.I really enjoyed the way the author wrote this one mixing in a narrative following a couple of stories while also detailing facts and dates as the war progressed. This way of writing made this book easy to fly through despite the heaviness of the topic. I highly recommend this one to everyone.

Another fine book by Sheinkin, who is perhaps the best Young Adult level writer of history. This one is particularly *necessary*, although it is an emotionally difficult read. Sheinkin tells the story of four Jewish young people who survived the Holocaust, three of whom were young men imprisoned in the Auschwitz death camp. The book is particularly focused on Rudolf Vrba who, along with his fellow prisoner Alfred Wetzler, managed to pull off a seemingly impossible escape from Auschwitz in 1944, lived through a long, dangerous journey to Hungary, and made the first public report of the millions of deaths taking place in the German Nazi gas chambers. Their report put pressure on Hungarian leadership to pull back from its cooperation with Germany and saved at least 200,000 Hungarian Jews.The second major focus of the book is on Gerta Sidnova, who went to school with Rudi Vrba in the Slovakian village of Trnava. When the Nazis began moving Jews from Czechoslovakia, she and her parents fled to Hungary. Gerta managed to avoid going to Auschwitz by making several desperate escapes. Her parents did not survive the war.Sheinkin spends the majority of the book telling the story of Rudi and Alfred’s daily struggle for survival in Auschwitz. They were fortunate to meet Filip Müller, who slaved in the gas chambers and the crematoriums. Between the three of them, they were exposed to just about every aspect of the camp’s organization for mass murder. There is no sugar coating here; this part of the book is very difficult to read. But that is the point. Hitler’s plan was to execute every single European Jew, and some of the killings continued to take place even after his suicide.After the war, the four young people each wrote books about Auschwitz and the murders of Jews; and they testified in many war crimes trials, including in Nuremberg. Rudi Vrba especially continued to speak out as a direct witness of the Holocaust all over the world until his death in 2006.In spite of the many first-hand stories of Holocaust survivors, many people in the United States refuse to believe that it happened. The stories must continue to be told, and young Americans especially need to hear them. The need to be aware of this particular example of human evil never stops. Please make sure more young people get the opportunity and challenge of reading this book.

Steve Sheinkin's newest YA nonfiction is a great one. This true story of two Jewish Slovakian teens depicts the horrors of Hitler's concentration camps, the dehumanization and murder his lies fueled, and the courage of young people who resisted, endured, escaped capture, and exposed Nazi atrocities. Sheinkin's research is impeccable, and his storytelling is so compelling you feel like you're reading a novel. A must for high school libraries and Holocaust Studies classes.

Not only is this my favorite book of the year and a sure contender for the Newbery Medal, it's one of my favorite books of all time. I'm an eighth-grade English teacher about to retire, and I wish I had twenty more years in me so I could teach this book every year. It's that good and important.

Please read and educate yourself. I have many Jewish friends and have never had my eyes opened more than after I read this book