With Impossible Escape, Steve Sheinkin has done it again as he takes a true story and makes a page-turner out of it. The story begins with classmates and friends Rudolph Vrba (Rudi) and Gerta Sidonova as their normal lives in the 1939 Slovakia begin to be disrupted. The first changes are bad enough as they are forbidden to go to school and must identify themselves as Jews with a yellow star.
Soon there will be worse with false promises of better times on the trains that are coming through and taking the Jews somewhere else. The “somewhere else” turns out to be concentration camps like Auschwitz where Rudi and his friend Alfred (Fred) find themselves. Gerta, blond and blue-eyed, gets somewhat of a reprieve with her family as they escape to Hungary. As her family lives with assumed names, their chances of getting captured grow daily. Steve Sheinkin alternates between the stories of the two friends with background information about World War II judiciously cited to keep the time frame clear. Detailed descriptions of what happens in the camps and Rudi’s growing impetus to find a way to escape and share this picture with the world keep the reader on edge.
This true story of one of the most famous whistleblowers whose death-defying escape and subsequent testimony helped save more than 100,000 lives is as intense as any gripping novel. The author’s note at the end gives a clue to the author’s motivation to do the extensive research and write this story.
I would give one word of warning. This is not a book to be read in bed, hoping it will relax you for a good night’s sleep.