1943, as a thousand Jews were deported from Drancy to the Sobibór extermination camp, thirteen prisoners escaped from the convoy. Among them was the author’s grandfather.
Paris, Winter 1943. When 20-year-old Lucie discovers her boyfriend Robert Fogel’s infidelity, she denounces him to the authorities for failing to wear his yellow star. She could never have imagined that her letter would lead to the deportation of Robert, his young brother Paul, and their parents.
Sent first to Drancy and then to Beaune-La-Rolande, Paul and Robert befriend the adolescent Hugues Steiner and his mentor Sylvain Kaufmann, a charismatic former soldier who had previously escaped a German Stalag. On March 25, 1943, the Fogel family and their fellow prisoners board Convoy 53 to the Sobibór extermination camp. But Sylvain has a plan. For this small group, joined by nine other deportees, escape becomes a fight for survival.
Based on the testimony of Paul Fogel, the author’s grandfather, The Escapees of Convoy 53 is a gripping, meticulously documented historical novel that celebrates collective courage as the last hope of the condemned. Reviewed by Holocaust historian Tal Bruttmann, it stands as a moving testament to memory and transmission in a time when the last witnesses are passing.
