Here is a partial bibliography and books and sources that have been consulted over a five-year period to make this website and also to facilitate the publication of a (pending) two-volume biography, Holocaust Hero: The Life and Times of Rudolf Vrba (Firefly Books, 2025). Volume II will appear in 2026.

Institutions: The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum (Poughkeepsie, New York) is where Vrba’s papers are stored. Also: Simon Fraser University (Special Collections); Simon Wiesenthal Center (Los Angeles); Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre; Mémorial de la Shoah (Paris); Holocaust Center for Humanity (Seattle); Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education (Portland); Radana Rutova, Terezin Memorial, (Czech Republic).

Interviews: George Bluman, Gillian Bryant-Greenwood, Arthur Dodek, Jan Drabek, Chris Friedrichs, Marketa Goetz-Stankiewicz, Helen Karsai, Robert Krell, Joseph Ragaz, Dan Sonnenchein, Peter Stenberg, Robin Vrba. Other contacts, Richard Bestic, Lady Esther Gilbert, Ann Hájková, Ruth Linn, Nikola Zimring: The Men Who Knew Too Much: Reflections on the Historiography of Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler’s Escape from Auschwitz-Birkenau and their Attempt to Warn the World, Master’s Degree thesis, The Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities, Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University, 2024

Books: Adderson, Carol, A History of Forgetting (Key Porter, 1999); Adler, H.G., Theresienstadt 1941-1945: The Face of a Coerced Community (Cambridge University Press, 2022); Alma, Ann, Brave Deeds How One Family Saved Many From the Holocaust (Groundwood, 2008); Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report the Banality of Evil (Penguin, 2006); Avey, Denis with Rob Broomby, The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz (Hodder & Stoughton, 2011); Bascomb, Neal, The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi (Scholastic, 2013); Bird, Kai, The Chairman: John J. McCloy & the Making of the American Establishment (Simon & Schuster, 1992); Black, Edwin, The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine (Carroll & Graf, 1983); Bleakley, Fred R., The Auschwitz Protocols: Ceslav Mordowicz and the Race to Save Hungary’s Jews (Post Hill Press, 2022); Bluman, Barbara, I Have My Mother’s Eyes: A Holocaust Memoir Across Generations (Ronsdale, 2008); Boraks-Nemetz, Lillian, The Old Brown Suitcase: A Teenager’s Story of War and Peace (Ben-Simon Publications, 1995; Ronsdale, 2008); Borkin, Joseph, The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben: The startling account of the unholy alliance of Adolf Hitler and Germany’s great chemical combine (The Free Press, 1978); Braham, Randolph L., The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary (Wayne State University Press, 2000); Bresheeth, Haim, Hood, Stuart, Janz, Litza, Introducing the Holocaust (Icon Books, 2000); Browning, Christopher R., Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (Penguin 2001); Buck, Tobias, Final Verdict: The Holocaust on Trial in the 21st Century (Hachette, 2024); Buckman, Alex, Afraid of the Dark: The Memoir of Alex Buckman (Writing Lives project (2016-2017); Cambell, Olga, A Whisper Across Time (Jubaji Press, 2018); Caplan, Sonia, Passport to Reprieve (The Azrieli Foundation, 2011); Cherish, Barbara U., The Auschwitz Kommandant: A Daughter’s Search for the Father She Never Knew (The History Press, 2009); Cernyak-Spatz, Susan, Protective Custody Prisoner 34042, N&S Publishers, 2005; Cornwall, Claudia, Letter from Vienna: A Daughter Uncovers Her Family’s Jewish Past (Douglas & McIntyre, 1995); Davidovits, Paul, Holocaust Memories: Annihilation and Survival in Slovakia (Amsterdam Publishers, 2021); Donat, Alexander, The Holocaust Kingdom (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963) [Includes ‘Lena’s Story’ by Lena Donat]; Drabek, Jan, Thirteen (Caitlin, 1991); Drabek, Jan, Vladimir Krajina: World War II Hero and Ecology Pioneer (Ronsdale, 2012); Drabek, Jaroslav, The Memoirs of Jaroslav Drabek 1901-1996 aka Unpublished memoir of Auschwitz prisoner #94692) translated by Jan Drabek, edited by Alexandra Drabek (self-published, 2011); Drysdale, Magaret Melanie, Three Times Betrayed: The Sudeten Germans of Tomslake (Malaspina College, Masters thesis, 2002); Fairweather, Jack, The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz (Custom House, William Morrow, 2019); Frie, Roger, Not in My Family: German Memory and Responsibility After the Holocaust (Oxford University Press, 2017); Frie, Roger, History Flows Through Us: Germany, the Holocaust and the Importance of Empathy (Routledge, 2018); Frinton, Ernst, Memories, An Autobiography (Self-published, 1994); Gallant, Mary J., Coming of Age in the Holocaust: The Last Survivors Remember (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America 2002); Garlinski, Josef, Fighting Auschwitz: The Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp (Fontana/Collins, 1975); Gilbert, Martin, The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War (Henry Holt & Company, 1985); Gilbert, Martin, The Righteous (Key Porter, 2003); Gold, Joe, Two Pieces of Cloth, One Family’s Story of the Holocaust (Page Two, 2021); Goldberg, Adara, Holocaust Survivors in Canada: Exclusion, Inclusion, Transformation, 1947-1955 (University of Manitoba Press 2015); Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (Abacus 1997); Goldman, Rene, Childhood on the Move: Memoirs of a Child-survivor of the Holocaust (Island Blue, 2014); Granirer, Pnina, Light Within the Shadows: A Painter’s Memoir (Granville Island 2017); Greeks in Auschwitz (Greek Foreign Ministry, 2009); Hájková, Anna, The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt (Oxford University Press, 2020); Harvey, Stella, Nicolai’s Daughters (Signature 2012); Hay, Peter, Ordinary Heroes: Chana Szenes and the Dream of Zion (Putnam, 1986); paperback, Ordinary Heroes, The Life and Death of Chana Szenes, Israel’s National Heroine (Paragon House, 1989); Hemmendinger, Judith, Krell, Robert, The Children of Buchenwald: Child Survivors of the Holocaust and their post-war lives (Gefen, 2000); Hilberg, Raul, The Destruction of the European Jews (Holmes & Meier, 1985); Hobbs-Birnie, Lisa, In Mania’s Memory (Read Leaf, 2010); The Holocaust Chronicle: A History in Words and Pictures (Publications International Ltd., 2000); Hoffman, Eva, Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language (Penguin, 1989); Jelínek, Yeshayahu Andrej, Star of David under Tatra Mountains (English language translation: Bratislava, Slovakia, National Museum of Jewish Culture, 2020); Kamenec, Ivan, On the Trail of Tragedy: The Holocaust in Slovakia (Bratislava, H & H Publishers, 2007); Kaellis, Rhoda, Keeping the Memory: Fifteen Eyewitness Accounts of Victoria Holocaust Survivors (Vancouver Holocaust Centre Society, 1991); Kahn, Leon, No Time to Mourn: The True Story of a Jewish Partisan Fighter (Ronsdale, 2004); Kalla, Daniel, The Far Side of the Sky (HarperCollins, 2011); Karwowska, Bozena (ed), The More I Know, The Less I Understand: Young Researchers’ Essays on Witnessing Auschwitz (Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum Publishing House, 2017); Kraus, Ota and Kulka, Erich, The Death Factory (London, New York, Pergamon Press, 1966); Krell, Robert, Memoiries: Sounds from Silence (self-published, 2016); Krell, Robert, Sounds from Silence: Reflections of a Child Holocaust Survivor, Psychiatrist and Teacher (Amsterdam Publishers, 2021); Langbein, Hermann, People in Auschwitz (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2004); Lanzmann, Claude, Shoah: An Oral History of the Holocaust: The Complete Text of the Film (Pantheon Books, 1985); Larson, Erik, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin (Broadway Paperbacks, 2011); Lester, David, The Listener: Memory, Lies, Art, Power (Arbeiter Ring, 2011); Levi, Primo, Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity (Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, 1986); Linn, Ruth, Escaping Auschwitz, A Culture of Forgetting (Cornell University Press, 2004); Lloyd, Alexandra, Defying Hitler: The White Rose Pamphlets (The Bodleian Library, 2022); Matas, David with Susan Charendoff, Justice Delayed: Nazi War Criminals in Canada (Summerhill Press, 1987); Mazzeo, Tilar J., Irena’s Children (Simon & Schuster, 2016); McKay, Paul, The Roman Empire: The Unauthorized Life and Times of Stephen Roman (Key Porter, 1990); McKenzie, James E., War Criminals in Canada (Detselig Enterprises, 1995); Mermelstein, Robert, My Life: A Journey from Mukacevo to Vancouver, Prevailing Over Adversity and Challenges (Self-published, 2018); Mielnicki, Michel, Bialystok to Birkenau: The Holocaust Journey of Michel Mielnicki (Ronsdale, 2000); Milman, Isa, Afterlight: In Search of Poetry, History and Home (Heritage House, 2021); Moszkiewiez, Helene, Inside the Gestapo: A Jewish Woman’s Secret War (Macmillan, 1985); Muller, Filip, Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers (Stein and Day, 1979); Nicholls, William, Christian Anti-Semitism: A History of Hate (Jason Aronson, 1992); Nyiszli, Miklos, I Was Doctor Mengele’s Assistant: The Memoirs of an Auschwitz Physician (Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2010); Patai, Raphael, The Jews of Hungary: History, Culture, Psychology (Wayne State University Press, 1996); Porter, Anna, Kasztner’s Train: The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust (Douglas & McIntyre, 2007); Pringle, Heather, The Master Plan: Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust (Viking, 2006); Rabinovici, Doron, Eichmann’s Jews: The Jewish Administration of Holocaust Vienna (Hoboken, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011); Rogow, Sally, They Must Not Be Forgotten: Heroic Catholic Priests and Nuns Who Saved People from the Holocaust (Holy Fire Publishing, 2005); Roland, Paul, The Nuremberg Trials: The Nazis and their Crimes against Humanity (Arcturus, 2010); Rozett, R., Spector, S., Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (Jerusalem, 2006); Ryback, Timothy W., Hitler’s Private Library: Books that Shaped his Life (The Bodley Head, 2009); Salcudean, Martha. In Search of Light – The Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs, 59 (The Azrieli Foundation / Second Story, 2019); Schallie, Charlotte, Under Swiss Protection: Jewish Eyewitness Accounts from Wartime Budapest (Columbia University Press, 2017); Schochet, Simon, Feldafing (November House, 1983); Shandler, Rhodea, A Long Labour: A Dutch Mother’s Holocaust Memoir (Ronsdale, 2004); Slyomovics, Susan, How to Accept German Reparations (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014); Sonnenschein, Bronia, Victory of Nazism, The Journey of a Holocaust Survivor (Memory Press, 1998); Stafford, David, Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II (Black Bay Books, 2007); Stoddard, Lothrop, Into the Darkness: An Uncensored Report from Inside the Third Reich at War (Indo-European Publishing.com, 2011); Świebocki, Henryk (editor), London has been informed: Reports by Auschwitz escapees (Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 1997); Tanenbaum, Roy D., Prisoner 88: The Man in Stripes (University of Calgary Press, 1998); Thau, Isaac, Killing Me Off: The Many Lives of Rubin Thau (self-published, 2021); Vadkerty, Madeline, ‘Aspects of the Holocaust During the Slovak Autonomy Period (October 6, 1938, to March 14, 1939’. Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Volume 42, Issue 1, Article 2 (George Fox University, February, 2022); Venezia, Shlomo, Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz (Polity Press, 2009); Vrba, Rudolf, I Escaped from Auschwitz: The Shocking Story of the World War II Hero Who Escaped the Nazis and Helped Save Over 200,000 Jews, edited by Nikola Zimring and Robin Vrba (Skyhorse Publishing, 2020); Waisman, Robert, The Boy from Buchenwald: The True Story of a Holocaust Survivor (Bloomsbury 2021) with Susan McClelland; Ward, James Mace, Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2013); Wetzler. Alfred, Escape from Hell: The True Story of the Auschwitz Protocol (Berghahn Books, 2007); Wiesel, Elie, A Mad Desire to Dance (Knopf, 2009); Wyman, David, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 (The New Press, 1984).

Oral interviews available online have been useful, most notably Claude Lanzmann’s interviews with Vrba, including segments that do not appear in the documentary Shoah [transcripts now available at RudolfVrba.com], as well as the oral history interview with Joseph Neumann, August 21, 1988, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. [There is also an extensive video interview with Ceslav Mordowicz, in Polish, with a rough English transcript made available via U.S. Holocaust Museum, and an oral history interview with Arnošt Rosin, only available in German, in which he recalls Vrba and Wetzler.]

Hundreds of websites and articles have also been consulted, too many to list.

Here are just a few: Medoff, Rafael, “The Roosevelt Administration, David Ben-Gurion and the Failure to Bomb Auschwitz: A Mystery Solved” http://new.wymaninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/TheFailureToBombAuschwitz.pdf; Nižňanský, Eduard, “The history of the Escape of Arnošt Rosin and Czeslaw Mordowicz from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp to Slovakia in 1944” from (Bratislava: Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences; Prague: International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, 2016); Vadkerty, Madeline (2022) “Aspects of the Holocaust During the Slovak Autonomy Period (October 6, 1938, to March 14, 1939),” Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 42: Iss. 1, Article 2. DOI:e Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol42/iss1/2; A specialist: the daily work of Erich Muhsfeldt, chief of the crematorium at Majdanek concentration and extermination camp, 1942–441 Mailänder Elissa https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9780719096020.003.0003 November 2014; Cohen, M.J.: Churchill and the Jews: The Holocaust. Modern Judaism 6:27-49, 1986. Friedrich, Otto: The Kingdom of Auschwitz, The Atlantic Monthly, September, 1981. Kunt, Gergely, An Open Secret? The Dissemination and Reception of News about Auschwitz in Hungary in 1944, in S:I.M.O.N.- Shoah Intervention. Methods. Documentation 6 (2019) 1,35-51 (Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies).

Note to researchers: Canada’s 618-page Rodal Report, derived from a long-suppressed document known as “Nazi War Criminals in Canada: The Historical and Policy Setting from the 1940s to the present,” has been made more readily accessible [not as a PDF] via this website.