Alfréd Wetzler
Alfréd Israel Wetzler (10 May 1918 – 8 February 1988), who wrote under the alias Jozef Lánik, was a Slovak Jewish writer. He is known for escaping from Auschwitz concentration camp and co-writing the Vrba-Wetzler Report, which helped halt the deportation of Jews from Hungary, saving up to 200,000 lives. Background Wetzler was born in Nagyszombat, Austria-Hungary (now Trnava, Slovakia). After his birthplace became part of Czechoslovakia, he was a worker in Trnava during the period 1936–1940. He was sent to the Birkenau (Auschwitz II) camp in 1942 and escaped from it with Rudolf Vrba on 10 April 1944. Together with Rudolf Vrba he wrote up the story of his experiences in Slovak as Auschwitz, Tomb of Four Million People, a factual account of the Wetzler–Vrba report and of other witnesses. The document combined the material from the Vrba–Wetzler report and two others, which were submitted together in evidence at the Nuremberg Trials as document no. 022-L, exhibit no. 294-USA. He later wrote a fictionalized account under the alias Jozef Lánik called What Dante Did Not See. After the war, Wetzler worked as an editor (1945–1950), worked in Bratislava (1950–1955) and on a farm (1955–1970). After 1970 he stopped working