Dr. Arthur Dodek is a Vancouver cardiologist, General Internal Medicine Doctor (GIM). He accompanied Rudolf Vrba to his medical appointments when Vrba was coping with cancer.

In the first interview, below, Arthur Dodek offers his remarks as to why Rudolf Vrba, a Holocaust hero, was not buried in a Jewish Cemetery. [Vrba’s nephew could only fly from eastern Canada and be able attend a funeral on a Saturday; hence, this was one of the reasons Robin Vrba selected a cemetery south of Vancouver that could accommodate a Saturday burial.]

Dodek met Vrba through Ruth Linn. Dodek observes he has met many survivors, and only Vrba wanted to talk about the Holocaust and how he survived. Vrba told him, “You have to be strong. If you show any weakness, you are finished.”

Dodek describes Vrba as a man of great inner fortitude.

Dodek recalls Vrba’s bitterness about Kasztner and the failure of the Zionist leadership to inform Jews about what was going on in the death camps–allowing them to instead believe they were to be relocated, thereby aiding and abetting the agenda of the Nazis.

Arthur Dodek talks about how Vrba felt vulnerable while dying. He was not his normally strong self.

Dodek recalls Robin Vrba’s advertisements as a successful realtor used to appear on the back of buses in Vancouver. He also recalls Vrba’s address to a Jewish Resistance study group.

Rudolf could speak quite rationally about the most horrible events. He never expressed any bitterness or resentment about those who escaped on the Kasztner Train and made it to Switzerland.

Arthur Dodek discusses the Rudolf Vrba Annual Lectureship at the University of British Columbia that has been co-funded by himself, Robert Krell, Yosef Wosk and others, and the one year he met a Holocaust denier who went to the talk to let everyone know the Holocaust was all lies.