Jonathan Freedland – författare

"An astonishing true story of courage, love, and betrayal, told with the verve of a thriller. Freedland is a master at weaving spellbinding entertainments drawn from forgotten corners of history."—Mick Herron, bestselling author of Slow Horses

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Escape Artist, an extraordinary true story of resistance, heroism and betrayal.

When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth.

Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer’s afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo.

They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite: two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador’s widow and a pioneering head mistress. What unites every one of them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance: meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer's rule. Or so they believe.

How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap?

Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich’s cruelest men, they showed a heroism in the face of the most vengeful regime in history that raises the question: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny?

En omedelbart klassiker och "en lysande och hjärtskärande bok med universella och aktuella lärdomar om styrkan i information och desinformation" enligt Yuval Noah Harari, författare till Sapiens och Homo Deus 

"Mörket är omätbart i lysande bok om Förintelsen" Dagens Nyheter

I april 1944 planerar tonåringen Rudolf Vrba en vågad och aldrig tidigare skådad flykt från Auschwitz. Efter att ha gömt sig i en hög med timmerplank i tre dagar medan 3 000 SS-män och deras hundar sökte efter honom skulle Vrba och hans medflykting Fred Wetzler så småningom korsa det nazistiska och ockuperade Polen till fots, som medellösa flyktingar. Deras uppdrag: att berätta sanningen om den slutgiltiga lösningen för världen.

Vrba skulle från minnet producera en hisnande rapport som avslöjade Auschwitz verkliga natur och omfattning, en rapport som skulle hitta vägen till Roosevelt, Churchill och påven och så småningom rädda över 200 000 judiska liv. Men Vrba slutade aldrig tro på att det kunde ha varit så många fler. Mannen som flydde från Auschwitz är den extraordinära historien om en man som skulle komma att försöka fly igen och igen: först från Auschwitz, sedan från sitt förflutna, till och med från sitt eget namn. Genom att berätta sin historia säkerställer journalisten och den hyllade författaren Jonathan Freedland att Rudolf Vrbas heroiska uppdrag också kommer att undgå glömska.

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award · New York Times Bestseller

"A brilliant and heart-wrenching book, with universal and timely lessons about the power of information—and misinformation. Is it possible to stop mass murder by telling the truth?" — Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

A complex hero. A forgotten story. The first witness to reveal the full truth of the Holocaust . . .

Award-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Jonathan Freedland tells the astonishing true story of Rudolf Vrba, the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world of a truth too few were willing to hear.

In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba became one of the very first Jews to escape from Auschwitz and make his way to freedom—among only a tiny handful who ever pulled off that near-impossible feat. He did it to reveal the truth of the death camp to the world—and to warn the last Jews of Europe what fate awaited them. Against all odds, Vrba and his fellow escapee, Fred Wetzler, climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and narrowly missed German bullets until they had smuggled out the first full account of Auschwitz the world had ever seen—a forensically detailed report that eventually reached Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the Pope.

And yet too few heeded the warning that Vrba had risked everything to deliver. Though Vrba helped save two hundred thousand Jewish lives, he never stopped believing it could have been so many more.

This is the story of a brilliant yet troubled man—a gifted “escape artist” who, even as a teenager, understood that the difference between truth and lies can be the difference between life and death. Rudolf Vrba deserves to take his place alongside Anne Frank, Oskar Schindler, and Primo Levi as one of the handful of individuals whose stories define our understanding of the Holocaust.

THE NEW BOOK THE TRAITORS CIRCLE COMING SOON FROM JONATHAN FREEDLANDSHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE, RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE, WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR AND LONGLISTED FOR THE WINGATE LITERARY PRIZEA MAIL ON SUNDAY, THE TIMES, THE ECONOMIST, GUARDIAN, THE SPECTATOR, TIME, AND DAILY EXPRESS/DAILY MIRROR BOOK OF THE YEAR''Thrilling'' Daily Mail''Gripping'' Guardian''Heartwrenching'' Yuval Noah Harari''Magnificent'' Philip Pullman''Excellent'' Sunday Times''Inspiring'' Daily Mail''An immediate classic'' Antony Beevor''Awe-inspiring'' Simon Sebag Montefiore''Shattering'' Simon Schama''Utterly compelling'' Philippe Sands''A must-read'' Emily Maitlis''Indispensable'' Howard Jacobson April 1944. Nineteen-year-old Rudolf Vrba and fellow inmate Fred Wetzler became two of the very first Jews to successfully escape Auschwitz. Evading the thousands of SS men hunting them, Vrba and Wetzler made the perilous journey on foot across Nazi-occupied Poland.Their mission: to reveal to the world the truth of the Holocaust.Vrba''s unique testimony would save some 200,000 lives.But he kept on running - from his past, from his home country, his adopted country, even from his own name. Now, at last, Rudolf Vrba''s heroism can be known.

An achingly beautiful, timeless picture book by bestselling author Jonathan Freedland and illustrated by Emily Sutton, inspired by a story from Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, author of The Passenger

It's King Winter's birthday, and he wants his party to be really special. He asks all of his brothers and sisters to be there: Queen Spring, King Summer and Queen Autumn.

But the wind and the trees whisper a warning, and as the four play magical games, something strange begins to happen outside.

Inspired by a story from Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, written while he was interned on the Isle of Man during the Second World War, this timeless fairy tale is a celebration of nature's rhythms, and of a chaotic world restored to balance.