Jonny Gould's Jewish State

Jonny Gould’s Jewish State circles back to a previous episode, uncovering startling new revelations. New details so rich, a bestseller has been updated to include them. In episode 88, I sat down with my old friend, Jonathan Freedland to discuss The Escape Artist, the story of two young Jewish men who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world of the horrors within. Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler’s 32-page report reached the desks of Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope and they warned Hungary’s Admiral Horthy to stop the deportation of his country’s Jews to Auschwitz - or they’d make him a war criminal. On receiving this, Horthy panicked and stopped turning a blind eye to the death trains leaving from across Hungary. 200,000 Jewish lives were spared because of Vrba and Wetzler’s actions. Dr. Bea Lewkowicz is a fellow member of my synagogue and one Shabbat morning, she told me that rather uniquely, she knew both Rudi and Alfred, who was her own Uncle Freddo. But the contrasting post war fortunes of the two men was