来自地狱的警告（上）

Culture

文化板块

Book review: The Holocaust

书评：大逃杀

Warning from hell

来自地狱的警告

The Escape Artist. By Jonathan Freedland.

《逃脱大师》乔纳森·弗里德兰著

One day in 1978 Rudolf Vrba was in a restaurant in New York when he spotted a number tattooed on a waiter’s arm.

1978年的一天，鲁道夫·弗尔巴在纽约的一家餐馆里，发现一名服务员的胳膊上纹了一个数字。

Vrba told him that he must be a Jew from Bedzin, Poland, who had arrived in Auschwitz in the summer of 1943.

弗尔巴对他说，他一定是来自波兰贝德津的犹太人，在1943年夏天到过奥斯威辛集中营。

The waiter, amazed, confirmed this deduction.

服务员大吃一惊，证实了这一推断。

Vrba’s extraordinary memory was his curse and a salvation.

弗尔巴非凡的记忆力是对他的诅咒，也是他的救星。

His curse, because he could never forget the columns of terrified Jews on the ramp at Birkenau, the corpses he had to carry or the smoke spiralling out of the crematoria.

这是对他的诅咒，因为他永远不会忘记比克瑙集中营斜坡上惊恐的犹太人长列，他不得不搬运的尸体，或是从火葬场冒出的烟雾。

A salvation, because the details he memorised eventually helped stop the deportation trains.

这是他的救星，因为他记住的细节最终帮助阻止了驱逐出境的火车。

Born Walter Rosenberg in Slovakia in 1924, he arrived in Auschwitz in June 1942.

他1924年出生于斯洛伐克，原名沃尔特·罗森伯格，于1942年6月抵达奥斯威辛集中营。

Daringly and desperately he escaped with Alfred Wetzler, a compatriot, in early April 1944.

1944年4月初，他勇敢而绝望地与同胞阿尔弗雷德·韦茨勒逃脱。

They made their way back to Slovakia, finding shelter with the remnants of the Jewish community.

他们回到了斯洛伐克，与犹太社区的残余分子一起寻找避难所。

The two men’s account of the camp was typed up and edited into a 32-page forensic report on the inner workings of the Nazi death machine.

两人对集中营的描述被打印出来，编辑成了一份32页的关于纳粹死亡机器内部运作的法医报告。

Jonathan Freedland is both a columnist at the Guardian and a thriller writer, and he tells this harrowing and astonishing story with pace and verve.

乔纳森·弗里德兰既是《卫报》的专栏作家，也是一名惊险小说作家，他流畅而又富有神韵地讲述了这个令人痛心又震惊的故事。

Vrba (as he became after the escape) wound up as a clerk in Auschwitz, so was fairly free to roam the camp.

弗尔巴(他越狱后的用名)最终在奥斯威辛集中营当了一名办事员，所以可以相当自由地在集中营里漫步。

He had also been posted to the section known as Kanada, where inmates unpacked the suitcases of those recently gassed, quickly forcing down any food they might find: “The lemons, the tins of sardines, the bars of chocolate...They had all been packed by anxious mothers and worried grandfathers.”

他还被派往到Kanada区过，在那里，囚犯们会打开那些最近被毒气毒死的人的手提箱，迅速把他们能找到的任何食物吞下去：“柠檬，沙丁鱼罐头，巧克力条……这些都是一位位焦虑的母亲和忧心的祖父打包的。”

By the spring of 1944, the SS guards were joking about the “Hungarian salami” that would arrive with the Jews of Hungary, the last surviving community in Nazi-occupied Europe.

到了1944年春天，纳粹党卫军开玩笑说，“匈牙利腊肠”会和匈牙利犹太人一起来到这里，匈牙利是欧洲在纳粹占领下最后幸存的社区。