{"product_id":"the-train-to-auschwitz","title":"The Train to Auschwitz","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn Investigative Journey into Wartime Slovakia\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eParfitt, Tudor \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eI was riveted from beginning to end. It is beautifully written and very, very moving. Once I started to read it I could not stop … the research is meticulous. I truly think it is a wonderful book. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eZoe Waxman\u003c\/strong\u003e, Professor of Holocaust Studies, University of Oxford\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Train to Auschwitz\u003c\/em\u003e tells the extraordinary story of a Jewish child who survived the Holocaust in Slovakia by an almost impossible chain of events. In 1942, Vera, an eight-year-old girl, was on a train from the concentration camp at Sereď, in western Slovakia, bound for Auschwitz. Had she arrived there, she would certainly have been murdered. Instead, close to the holding camp at Žilina, she escaped.\u003cbr\u003eTudor Parfitt reconstructs Vera’s story and, through it, the wider history of Slovak Jewry between 1939 and 1945: the destruction of Jewish schools and synagogues, forced labour, petty humiliations, the fragile system of exemptions for doctors and other “useful” Jews, and the Slovak government’s decision to pay Nazi Germany to remove its Jews — a policy that led to deportation and extermination.\u003cbr\u003eWhen Parfitt first heard Vera's story in Brooklyn, many details had been obscured by time. To recover them, he undertook research journeys through Slovakia in 2023 and 2024, retracing her wartime steps and encountering archivists, scholars, priests, local historians, socialites, drunks, and antisemites. Part Holocaust history, part life history, and part literary travel account, the book follows a trail of memory, doubt, and discovery through wartime and present-day Slovakia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e200 pages  22 images\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCopyright: \u003c\/strong\u003e20\/08\/2026\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vallentine Mitchell","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42516193476690,"sku":"9781803711065","price":27.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0339\/1553\/files\/9781803711065.jpg?v=1784631127","url":"https:\/\/www.vmbooksusa.com\/products\/the-train-to-auschwitz","provider":"Vallentine Mitchell","version":"1.0","type":"link"}