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 headmistress. Meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer's rule, what unites them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance. 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? And who betrayed them?

Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich's cruellest men, they showed a heroism that raises a question with new urgency for our time: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny?

PRAISE FOR THE ESCAPE ARTIST:

'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

‘This remarkable book reads like a novel . . . The narrative style is gripping; the morality searing. This is how the best history books will be written in the future’
ANDREW ROBERTS

‘Excellent . . . both history and parable, perfect reading for this moment‘
ANNE APPLEBAUM

‘Thrilling, humane, and deeply moving . . . the best sort of history, one whose rich characters breathe life and perspective into our present circumstance. Haunting, and not to be missed’
DAVID McCLOSKEY

‘The Traitors Circle rivals Freedland’s superb The Escape Artist. Totally gripping and timely‘
JONATHAN DIMBLEBY

‘Haunting and heart-poundingly suspenseful . . . Freedland’s powerful story-telling has intense resonance in today’s darkening world’
SINCLAIR MCKAY

‘As tense as a thriller yet perceptive, thoughtful and thoroughly researched’
KATJA HOYER

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 afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo – revealing their secret to the Nazis’ most ruthless detective.

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 headmistress. Meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer’s rule, what unites them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance. 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? And who betrayed them?

Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich’s cruellest men, they showed a heroism that raises a question with new urgency for our time: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny?

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.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

A 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

Anne Frank. Primo Levi. Oskar Schindler . . . Rudolf Vrba.

In April 1944 nineteen-year-old Rudolf Vrba and fellow inmate Fred Wetzler became two of the very first Jews ever known to break out of Auschwitz. Under electrified fences and past armed watchtowers, evading thousands of SS men and slavering dogs, they trekked across marshlands, mountains and rivers to freedom. Vrba’s mission: to reveal to the world the truth of the Holocaust.

In the death factory of Auschwitz, Vrba had become an eyewitness to almost every chilling stage of the Nazis’ process of industrialised murder. The more he saw, the more determined he became to warn the Jews of Europe what fate awaited them. A brilliant student of science and mathematics, he committed each detail to memory, risking everything to collect the first data of the Final Solution. After his escape, that information would form a priceless thirty-two-page report that would reach Roosevelt, Churchill and the pope and eventually save over 200,000 lives.

But the escape from Auschwitz was not his last. After the war, he kept running – from his past, from his home country, from his adopted country, even from his own name. Few knew of the truly extraordinary deed he had done.

Now, at last, Rudolf Vrba’s heroism can be known – and he can take his place alongside those whose stories define history’s darkest chapter.