Escape from the Third Reich: The Harrowing True Story of the Largest Rescue Effort Inside Nazi Germany

by Sune Persson

The Swedish Red Cross expedition to the German concentration camps from March to April 1945 was the largest rescue effort inside Germany during WWII. Led by Count Bernadotte of Wisborg, the mission became known for its distinctive buses: Each bus was purposefully painted entirely white except for the Red Cross emblem on the side so that they would not be mistaken for military targets. According to conservative figures in May 1945, at least 17,000 prisoners were transported to Sweden by these white buses.


In this first book to detail this remarkable and hazardous operation, and with never-before-published photographs of the bus journeys, the details of Bernadotte’s harrowing expedition to Ravensbruck concentration camp and his secret negotiations with Heinrich Himmler are revealed.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Susan]

I found this book browsing my library's offerings. Always interested in the War in Scandinavia. I had no idea that people - and so many people from concentration camps and work camps close to the end of the War. And that thousands died days before the war ended, bombed by the British who didn't know that there were survivors on the docked German ships. Or that Himmler was meeting with Swedish diplomats to avoid the destruction of the camps and survivors (which was Hitler's intention.)
Fascinating book.

[Eric]

This was an interesting book and perspective on getting people out of German. A lot of it focused on the Scandinavian countries, but the people who did this were just trying to get prisoners of the concentration camps out of German.

For the most part the book was good, it was chock full of information, I actually had no idea that there was a type of mission that went on to get people repatriated.