Jonathan Freeland, then only nineteen, accompanied his father to a London cinema to watch the ten-hour documentary Shoah, directed by Claude Lanzmann. The film assembles first-person testimonies from victims, witnesses, and the perpetrators of the Nazi murder of Jews during World War II, tracing their experiences with unflinching depth.
What struck Freeland most was the sea of aging faces, each bearing the weight of memories that refuse to fade. Among them one man stood out: a man who exuded charisma and bore a striking resemblance to a certain film icon. He wore a leather jacket, had thick, dark hair, and spoke English in a way that felt oddly contemporary, even though the surrounding dialogue moved through Polish, Russian, and German. It seemed more than a historical record; it felt like a person who had managed to survive and still carry himself with a present-day energy, casually dropping in that he had escaped from Auschwitz.
For Freeland, the documentary did not present a revelation about a distant event. It appeared almost impossible for a Jewish prisoner to escape Auschwitz, and yet the possibility lingered at the edges of his curiosity about the wider story he would one day examine in depth.
Today, after having built a career as a columnist and as a frequent contributor to major newspapers, the author has found the resolve to author a book on the history of the fugue, a concept he uses to frame the life of Rudolf Vrba. Vrba, born Walter Rosenberg nearly a century ago in Slovakia, escaped from the Nazis and dedicated his life to shedding light on what had happened.
Q. Why did you decide to write this book now?
r. The idea had hovered for decades, and in a world saturated with misinformation, the choice felt urgent. The author believed Vrba risked everything to reveal the truth, stepping beyond fear to counter a rising tide of untruths and fake narratives that had begun to define public discourse.
Q. Who was Rudi Vrba (the man formerly known as Walter Rosenberg)?
r. Rudolf Vrba was an extraordinary individual. He grew up with a keen intellect and a talent for languages and science. What set him apart was a stubborn refusal to bow to coercion, even as a Jew facing deportation. He viewed orders that restricted freedom as unacceptable and began a lifelong pattern of revealing crucial information. After his capture and time in Auschwitz, Vrba framed a daring plan: escape, then tell the world what happened so that others could act. The book’s title, The Master of Fugue, signals a man who would not be silenced, intent on breaking the deception that powered the Nazi killing machine. His memory and analytic mind allowed him to organize countless details about the atrocities he witnessed.
Q. What gave Vrba the strength to pursue such a dangerous course?
r. An innate urge for freedom anchored him from childhood onward. That longing drove him to resist any regime that tried to dictate his path. He understood that deception was one of the Nazis’ most dangerous tools, a tactic used to lure victims onto trains bound for death. Vrba believed that exposing the truth and dismantling that deceit was essential to preventing more catastrophe. He relied on a sharp memory and profound perseverance to store and share critical data, even under extreme risk.
Q. After the dramatic escape, Vrba and his partner Alfred Wetzler drafted a report detailing the Nazi Holocaust. Under what conditions did they do so?
r. The two survivors reached a small Jewish community in Slovakia and dictated the facts to Jewish leaders at a nursing home basement in Zilina. The result was a 32-page report that circulated in informal, clandestine ways before reaching the highest circles of power.
Q. How did the act of reporting unfold at a time without social networks? It seems almost unimaginable that such a document would spark global attention today.
r. The report could not be sent by a single click. Each copy had to be hand typed and smuggled into Nazi-occupied Europe, passed along through resistance networks and diplomats, and then found its way to Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Pope. The journey of that document mirrored the broader struggle to reveal truth in the face of vast danger.
Q. There is a difficult chapter about Jewish leaders who chose to protect a select few rather than warn the many, condemning thousands to death. How did that happen?
r. Part of the explanation lies in disbelief. Some colleagues in Budapest could not accept what the reporters claimed, dismissing it as a product of wartime hysteria. Others argue there were political calculations at play, aimed at safeguarding certain factions rather than mobilizing broader resistance. In the end, a different calculus emerged: not everyone wanted to provoke war-time backlash by exposing the full truth. The controversy around Kasztner, who helped save a smaller group, remains a stark reminder of the moral ambiguity that haunted wartime decisions. The broader consequence was devastating for many, even as a few were spared.
Q. Perhaps the most striking aspect is that once the report reached key leaders, very little happened. Why did that occur?
r. Several factors mattered. Military leaders weighed strategic priorities and questioned the practicality of bombing rail lines linked to concentration camps. There was also a troubling bias: reports of Jewish suffering were not always believed or taken seriously. Politicians worried that focusing on Jewish victims might complicate the broader war effort or provoke public backlash. The result was a reticence to take decisive action, even as desperate voices urged bold intervention. The episode remains a reminder that history is rarely tidy or easy to interpret.
You would expect Vrba to be celebrated alongside figures like Anne Frank or Primo Levi. Why has this not happened?
r. Vrba’s role, while crucial, is often viewed through a lens of trauma and controversy. The Vrba-Wetzler report helped save many lives in Budapest, yet Vrba’s own reticence to seek public adulation kept him from stadium-sized tributes. As he once told a BBC producer, he refused to be categorized as a typical Holocaust survivor. The larger public sometimes prefers straightforward narratives of heroism, yet Vrba’s insistence that history not be simplified has kept his story from the grand stage. He believed that truth is essential, even when it is uncomfortable, and that memory should challenge rather than soothe the conscience of contemporary society.