No Road Leading Back

An Improbable Escape from the Nazis, 'utterly compelling,' James Holland, The Telegraph

By: Chris Heath

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Paperback | 11 November 2025 | Edition Number 1

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640 Pages

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19.7 x 12.6 x 4.5

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'A stunning book, a powerful investigation, utterly compelling,' James Holland, The Daily Telegraph, Five stars

Ponar, Lithuania. 1944. The Nazis have enslaved Jewish men to exhume and incinerate the bodies of more than 70,000 Jews previously shot to death in the forest. Trapped in almost unimaginable horror, a group develop an audacious escape plan. Despite being guarded day and night, they dig a tunnel with their bare hands. Twelve men escape - an act of great bravery and desperation as well as extraordinary imagination.

Based on first-person accounts of the escapees and on every scrap of evidence that has been documented, repressed or amplified since, No Road Leading Back resurrects the lives of the twelve and their acts of witness, as well as providing an urgent analysis of why their story has rarely been told - and never accurately. Author Chris Heath explores the cultural use and misuse of Holocaust testimony and the need for us to face uncomfortable historical truths with honesty and accuracy.

This shattering and inspiring true story of prisoners who dug their way out of torture and imprisonment by the Nazis is both a stunning escape narrative and an object lesson in how we remember and continually forget the particulars of the Holocaust.

Industry Reviews

This is one of the best books written about The Shoah by Bullets. Clearly written, superbly researched, it's a fascinating reminder of an unjustly neglected story about The Holocaust - David Herman

Chris Heath has finally given the horror of Ponar the sustained and concentrated attention it deserves. He has left no stone unturned in his effort to understand what happened in this terrible place, and to reinscribe its survivors' stories back into historical memory. I was stunned by this book's scope, rigor, and compassion. A monumental work of reportage and commemoration - Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

Utterly absorbing in its powerfully detailed horror and inspiring redemption: a must-read in Holocaust studies - Kirkus Reviews

No Road Leading Back is a stunning book, a powerful investigation, utterly compelling, at times stomach-churning and deeply shocking, but also by turns tragic, wistful and curiously uplifting... Five Stars - Daily Telegraph

The stories of these men will unsettle and change you. Anyone who cares about human nature and the question of good and evil owes this author their admiration and gratitude - Rich Cohen, author of The Avengers: A Jewish War Story

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