Vrba–Wetzler report
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| Location | Composed in Žilina, Slovakia, 25 April 1944 |
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| Also known as | , Auschwitz Report, Auschwitz notebook |
| Participants | Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler |
| Outcome | The report prompted an end to the mass deportation of Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz, saving around 200,000 lives. |
| Website |
"Full text of the report", German Historical Institute. |
The Vrba–Wetzler report, also known as the Auschwitz Protocols, the Auschwitz Report and the Auschwitz notebook, is a 40-page document about the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust.
Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler, two Slovak Jews who escaped from Auschwitz on 10 April 1944, wrote the report by hand or dictated it, in Slovak, between 25 and 27 April, in Žilina, Slovakia. Oscar Krasniansky of the Slovak Jewish Council typed up the report and simultaneously translated it into German.
The Allies had known since November 1942 that Jews were being killed en masse in Auschwitz. The Vrba-Wetzler report was an early attempt to estimate the numbers and the most detailed description of the gas chambers to that point. The publication of parts of the report in June 1944 is credited with helping to persuade the Hungarian regent, Miklós Horthy, to halt the deportation of that country's Jews to Auschwitz, which had been proceeding at a rate of 12,000 a day since May 1944. The first full English translation of the report was published in November 1944 by the United States War Refugee Board.
The Vrba-Wetzler report is sometimes referred to as the Auschwitz Protocols, although in fact the Protocols incorporated information from three reports, including Vrba–Wetzler.
Under the title "German Extermination Camps—Auschwitz and Birkenau," the Auschwitz Protocols was first published in full in English on 25 November 1944 by the Executive Office of the United States War Refugee Board. Miroslav Kárný writes it was published on the same day the last 13 prisoners, all women, were gassed or shot in crematorium II in Auschwitz-Birkenau. 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.
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