Impossible Escape: Chapters 6–12

by Steve Sheinkin
This is the true story of Slovakian teenager Rudolf Vrba, who escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp in April 1944 and provided eyewitness testimony that stopped the deportation of 200,000 Jews in Hungary, including his childhood friend and future wife, Gerta Sidonová, who reconnected with him through her underground resistance network.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Prologue–Chapter 5, Chapters 6–12, Chapters 13–19, Chapters 20–27, Chapter 28–Epilogue
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. quota
    a prescribed number
    More than two million European Jews had settled in the United States in the past few decades, but the American government had shut that door in the 1920s with strict immigration quotas.
  2. influential
    having or exercising power
    You couldn’t get into Britain either, not without influential connections.
  3. shorthand
    a method of writing rapidly
    She had zero interest in being a secretary. Like Rudi’s study of Russian, practicing typing and shorthand was just something to do, something to occupy her gifted mind.
  4. graze
    eat lightly; try different dishes
    There was a guard in the kitchen, but he seemed busy grazing on the food lying around.
  5. steep
    set at a high angle (of a slope)
    They dove under the wire, skidded down a steep hill, splashed across a shallow stream, and charged into the woods, laughing like kids with the joy of running free.
  6. forge
    make a copy of with the intent to deceive
    With any luck, the contact he’d met in Hungary had sent the forged identity papers he’d promised.
  7. kiosk
    small area set off by walls for special use
    Rudi tore down the city street and circled a busy newspaper kiosk like a mouse in a cartoon.
  8. evade
    escape, either physically or mentally
    She and her mother, Jozefina, would set out first, the family decided. Max would travel separately, hopefully giving them all a better chance to evade notice.
  9. in earnest
    in a serious manner
    “I felt in every fiber of my body that the fight for survival had started in earnest,” Gerta would later say.
  10. sliver
    (figurative) a small or narrow piece or slice
    That was one sliver of mercy—Slovakia’s president, Jozef Tiso, had promised that families could stay together.
  11. neutral
    not supporting or favoring either side in a dispute
    Small numbers of people who were able to escape occupied territory and reach Britain, or neutral countries such as Switzerland, told of what they’d seen and heard.
  12. multitude
    a large gathering of people
    “To remove the anticipated multitudes by shooting would be absolutely impossible,” he’d later explain, “and, in respect of the women and children, would impose too great a strain on the SS men who would have to carry it out.”
  13. impose
    inflict something unpleasant
    “To remove the anticipated multitudes by shooting would be absolutely impossible,” he’d later explain, “and, in respect of the women and children, would impose too great a strain on the SS men who would have to carry it out.”
  14. precedent
    an example that is used to justify similar occurrences
    Höss decided to use poison gas. There was precedent for this. With Hitler’s approval, the Nazis had already used poison gas to murder tens of thousands of Germans with mental illnesses or physical disabilities.
  15. vermin
    any of various small animals or insects that are pests
    In September 1941, the Auschwitz staff tested their first gas chamber. Guards forced Soviet prisoners of war into a basement room in Block 11, the camp’s punishment block. They threw in Zyklon B—toxic hydrogen cyanide in crystal form, a pesticide used in camp to kill vermin and disinfect clothes.
  16. annihilation
    total destruction
    “I must admit openly that the gassings had a calming effect on me,” he would later say, “since in the near future the mass annihilation of the Jews was to begin.”
  17. emaciated
    very thin, especially from disease or hunger or cold
    Emaciated men with shaved heads, wearing striped prisoner uniforms, moved around pushing wheelbarrows, digging holes.
  18. assortment
    a collection containing a variety of kinds of things
    They were closely watched by healthier-looking men in a strange assortment of mismatched clothing, with green triangles sewn on their shirts.
  19. determined
    characterized by great firmness of purpose
    Because the more Rudi saw of Majdanek, the more determined he was to escape.
  20. concierge
    a caretaker in an apartment complex or hotel
    Anyone could be a police informant, including the concierge who lived on the ground floor and kept a nosy watch on the building’s residents.
  21. brood
    think moodily or anxiously about something
    Her mother saw that she was brooding, bored and lonely, worried sick about her friends.
  22. asset
    a useful or valuable quality
    Non-Jewish adults had often told her she did not “look Jewish”—disturbingly, they meant it as a compliment. But could her fair hair and blue eyes be an asset now?
  23. promptly
    at once (usually modifies an undesirable occurrence)
    Gerta entered the store—and promptly blanked on the Hungarian word for matches.
  24. coveted
    greatly desired
    Kitchen jobs were coveted in camp—for the opportunity to steal food.
  25. flank
    be located at the sides of something or somebody
    Flanked by SS men, they marched in a column out of Majdanek.
  26. ponder
    reflect deeply on a subject
    Rudi began pondering escape options.
  27. lanky
    tall and thin and having long slender limbs
    He looked around the car, hoping to find an accomplice, and spotted the blond hair and lanky frame of Josef Erdelyi.
  28. assess
    estimate the nature, quality, ability or significance of
    What about the weathered wooden floor? Could they crack a few boards and slip out? They agreed to assess their chances at the first stop.
  29. cordon
    a series of sentinels or posts enclosing some place or thing
    Dozens of SS guards, with their submachine guns, had already formed a cordon around the train.
  30. lackey
    a servile or submissive follower
    The kapo turned and climbed the stairs, his lackeys close behind.
  31. overwhelming
    so strong as to be irresistible
    Was there any effective way to fight back against such overwhelming evil?
  32. evidently
    in a manner that is obvious or unmistakable
    Rudi watched prisoners carry in barrels of steaming liquid. He was served a portion and gulped it down. This, evidently, was the “tea”—gray and bitter.
  33. diabolical
    extremely evil or cruel
    An orchestra? In this diabolical place?
  34. procession
    the action of a group moving ahead in regular formation
    This procession looked to Rudi like a ghoulish hallucination. A military-style march in rows of five, neat and orderly—but when you focused in on individual people you could see that many of them were skeletal and wobbling.
  35. naive
    marked by or showing unaffected simplicity
    For now, he only knew he’d been absurdly naïve. To have imagined himself in a wheat field, awaiting the right moment to make a break for the woods! It was the fantasy of a child.
  36. rafter
    one of several parallel sloping beams that support a roof
    Franz brought them into another barracks, a narrow, barnlike space with wooden rafters and tall rows of bunk beds, three levels high.
  37. assimilate
    become like one's environment
    They were among Hungary’s more than eight hundred thousand Jews—almost 9 percent of the country’s population—and well assimilated into Hungarian life.
  38. unsettle
    cause to feel nervous, anxious, or upset
    The boys babbled on about sports, about friends at school. Normal things—that’s what was so unsettling. They seemed utterly uninterested in the war or the fate of Jewish people in countries under Nazi control.
  39. assume
    make a pretence of
    “They never asked about me,” Gerta recalled, “what it felt like being a refugee, assuming another identity, not being able to go to school.”
  40. gallows
    an instrument from which a person is executed by hanging
    Rudi lined up with thousands of other prisoners in a courtyard outside the camp kitchen. Two wooden gallows sat in front of the building. A row of SS guards, guns on straps over their shoulders, beat on military drums.
Created on Tue Jun 04 10:39:07 EDT 2024 (updated Wed Jun 05 13:30:00 EDT 2024)

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