Rudolf Vrba Papers, 1934-2008 | Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum

The papers are arranged into sevem series, as follows: Holocaust, Academic, Personal, Photographs, Audiovisual Materials, Memorabilia and Printed Materials, Foreign Language Materials. Most foreign language materials are grouped together in a series, but a small amount remains foldered along with clearly related materials according to original order of the documents as received by the Library.

This collection details the personal, professional, scholarly, and humanitarian life of Auschwitz escapee and co-author of the Vrba-Wetzler Report, Rudolf Vrba. Dr. Vrba is credited with being among the first witnesses to report the nature, methods, and scale of mass extermination performed by the Nazis. The Papers largely pertain to Dr. Vrba’s life and work following his emigration from Eastern Europe, including his biochemistry and pharmacology research career and efforts in support of Holocaust remembrance.

Vrba, Rudolf

Rudolf Vrba was born Walter Rosenberg in Topolčany, Czechoslovakia in 1924. After his escape from Auschwitz-Birkenau in April 1944, the Slovakian Jewish underground provided him with new identity papers, with the name “Rudolf Vrba.”  This new identity was in order to protect him and his family against future arrest. He legalized the name immediately after the war.

At the age of 15, Vrba was excluded from gymnasium (secondary school) in Bratislava under Slovakia’s version of the Nuremberg Laws, known as the Jewish Code. In 1942, he was arrested and deported first to the concentration camp Majdanek and later to Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II (Birkenau). While at Auschwitz, Vrba was given prisoner identification number “44070.” Vrba first worked at the Aufraumungskommando. His job included meeting the newly arrived deportees at the railroad ramp, collecting their property and sorting it in huge storage areas.  These storage areas were ironically named Kanada (the land of plenty). From this position, Vrba was able to observe the trainloads of people, their country of origin, the dates of their arrival and the number of people in each transport.

Later Vrba was appointed registrar in the quarantine camp for men, in section B-II-a, a position where his opportunity to collect information improved. Those who were selected for slave-labor were first brought to the quarantine camp.  As registrar Vrba was able to collect additional information and he was thus able to double-check his previous estimates.

On the 7^th of April 1944, Vrba and another Slovak Jew, Alfred Wetzler, escaped from Auschwitz. They decided to go to Slovakia since there they had the best chance to go unnoticed because they were native Slovak speakers, were familiar with the local customs and hoped to utilize their contacts. Immediately after their arrival, they contacted the remnants of the Jewish community and informed them about the terrible realities of Auschwitz. Together they produced a detailed report, which came to be known as the “Vrba-Wetzler Report.” This account is credited with being among the first authoritative and detailed reports which informed the U.S. War Refugee Board, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Pope Pius XII about the methods, scale, and human cost of the Holocaust. It was endorsed by the US Government as true, and later used as evidence at the Nuremburg Trials.

Following dissemination of the Vrba-Wetzler Report, Vrba participated in the Slovak National Uprising and served in the partisan unit of Captain Milan Uher, where he stayed until the end of the war. For his heroic actions, he was awarded the Czechoslovak Medal for Bravery, Order of Slovak National Insurrection (Class 2) and the Medal of Honor of Czechoslovak Partisans. In 1945, Vrba moved to Prague where he earned a doctorate in biochemistry fromPrague Technical University and began working as a neurochemist. In 1958, he moved to Israel and worked at Weitzman Institute in Rehovot. In 1960 Vrba moved to London and became a citizen of the United Kingdom in 1966. In 1967 Vrba relocated to Vancouver, British Columbia and became a Canadian citizen in 1973. From 1973 - 1975, Dr Vrba worked at Harvard Medical School with a grant from the Medical Research Council of Canada. From 1976 until his retirement in 1990, Dr. Vrba served as a Professor of Pharmacology at the University of British Columbia. He wrote and lectured prolifically, retiring as a leader in the field of biochemistry and pharmacology.

Dr. Rudolf Vrba remained active in his defiance of Nazism until his death in 2006. He authored in 1963, with Alan Bestic, memoirs entitled I Cannot Forgive, later re-titled I Escaped from Auschwitz and 44070: The Conspiracy of the Twentieth Century.

This autobiography has since been published in numerous languages in over fifteen editions. Vrba regularly lectured at Holocaust conferences and events, and made himself available for interviews; additionally he contributed to several film documentaries and had several publications in historical journals. Finally, Vrba acted as a prosecution witness against Nazi criminals and Holocaust deniers in several court cases.

Dr. Rudolf Vrba passed away in 2006 at the age of 81.