This conversation between award-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Jonathan Freedland and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writer David Remnick celebrates Freedland’s new book The Escape Artist. The Escape Artist tells the incredible story of Rudolf Vrba, the first Jew to break out of Auschwitz—one of only four who ever successfully pulled off that feat—to reveal the truth of the death camp to the world and to warn the last Jews of Europe about what awaited them at the end of the railway line. Against all odds, Vrba and his fellow escapee Fred Wetzler climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and narrowly avoided German bullets to bring their first full account of Auschwitz to the world; their forensically detailed report that eventually reached Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the Pope.

In-person admission has an option to purchase a signed copy of The Escape Artist, which is available at shop.mjhnyc.org. Seating is first come, first served. Jonathan will add personalized book signings after the event.

Doors will open at 6:30 PM. 

Jonathan Freedland is a British journalist who writes a weekly column for The Guardian. He presents BBC Radio 4’s contemporary history series The Long View and is a past winner of the Orwell Prize for journalism. He is the author of eleven other books, including the award-winning Bring Home the Revolution. He has written nine thrillers, mostly as Sam Bourne, including The Righteous Men which was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. For more on Jonathan Freedland, visit: jonathanfreedland.com.
David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker since 1998, began his career at the Washington Post, in 1982. He is the author of several books, including The Bridge, King of the World, Resurrection, and Lenin’s Tomb, for which he received both the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and a George Polk Award for excellence in journalism. He became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 1992 and has since written more than two hundred pieces for the magazine. In 2015, he débuted as the host of the national radio program and podcast, “The New Yorker Radio Hour,” which airs weekly on public-radio stations across the U.S. Under Remnick’s leadership, The New Yorker has become the country’s most honored magazine, with a hundred and ninety-two National Magazine Award nominations and fifty-three wins. In 2016, it became the first magazine to receive a Pulitzer Prize for its writing, and now has won six, including the gold medal for public service.