Rudolf Vrba - Early Life and Arrest

Early Life and Arrest

Vrba was born Walter Rosenberg in Topoľčany, Czechoslovakia, to Elias Rosenberg and his wife, Helena (née Grunfeldova), who owned a steam sawmill in Jaklovce, near Margecany. The name "Rudolf Vrba" was given to him by the Slovakian Jewish Council in April 1944 after his escape.

Because he was a Jew, he was excluded at the age of 15 from the local high school under the Slovakian version of the Nazis' Nuremberg Laws, and went to work instead as a labourer. He wrote in his memoirs that jobs were hard to come by for Jews; there were restrictions on where they could live and travel, they were required to wear a yellow badge, and available jobs went first to non-Jews.

In 1942 it was announced that Jews were to be sent to "reservations" in Poland, starting with the young men. Vrba, then aged 17, decided instead to flee the country to join the Czechoslovak Army in England. He reached the Hungarian border, but the border guards handed him back over to the Slovakian authorities, who in turn sent him to the Nováky transition camp, a holding camp for Jews awaiting deportation. He managed to escape briefly, but was caught by a policeman who apparently became suspicious when he saw that Vrba was wearing two pairs of socks.