No Road Leading Back

A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST • CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE FINALIST • This by turns shattering and hope-giving account of prisoners who dug their way to freedom from the Nazis is both a stunning escape narrative and an object lesson in the ways we remember and continually forget the particulars of the Holocaust.

No Road Leading Back is the remarkable story of a dozen prisoners who escaped from the site where more than 70,000 Jews were shot in the Lithuanian forest of Ponar after the Nazi invasion of Eastern Europe in 1941. Anxious to hide the incriminating evidence of the murders, the S.S. later in the war enslaved a group of Jews to exhume every one of the bodies and incinerate them all in a months-long labor—an episode whose specifics are staggering and disturbing, even within the context of the Holocaust.

From within that dire circumstance emerges the improbable escape made by some of the men, who dug a tunnel with bare hands and spoons while they were trapped and guarded day and night—an act not just of bravery and desperation but of awesome imagination. Based on first-person accounts of the escapees and on each scrap of evidence that has been documented, repressed, or amplified since, this book resurrects their lives, while also providing a complex, urgent analysis of why their story has rarely been told, and never accurately. Heath explores the cultural use and misuse of Holocaust testimony and the need for us to face it—and all uncomfortable historical truths—with honesty and accuracy.One of The Smithsonian’s “10 Best History Book of 2024"
An ALA Notable Book

"Meticulously researched. . . [No Road Leading Back] illuminates Nazi atrocities at Ponar, while also delving into why this site of mass murder has been historically treated as a footnote. . . . Through it all, Heath invites readers to consider how history is recorded and sometimes repurposed, even decades later." —The Washington Post

“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. Never pious or sentimental, the book twists and turns, asking all the complicated questions a fine history book should.” —David Herman, Chief Reviewer of The Jewish Chronicle

"Out­stand­ing. . . . Heath recounts a series of dev­as­tat­ing events that took place in the forests of Ponar, Lithua­nia in 1941. . . . Heath sifts through doc­u­ments, diaries, and oth­er per­son­al tes­ti­monies to work through con­tra­dic­tions and dis­crep­an­cies and reveal the truth. He argues that uncom­fort­able his­tor­i­cal truths often remain buried because of a lack of hon­esty among the per­pe­tra­tors, and he blames Lithua­nia for not own­ing up to its war crimes. With this book, the vic­tims of Ponar are final­ly giv­en the atten­tion it deserves. . . This pow­er­ful book will enable the world to listen." —Jewish Book Council

“Heath shines a light on subsequent efforts to erase the memory of those mass killings. . . . A detailed account of what happened in Ponar and how we remember it is an act of deep piety.” —Wall Street Journal

“No Road Leading Back is an unparalleled work of journalistic research with profound importance for the field of Holocaust studies, but even more so, it is a moving story of human endurance, perseverance, and hope — even when all hope seems lost.” —Washington Independent Review of Books

“Exhaustively researched. . . . Heath’s exploration of how the Holocaust has been memorialized—or weaponized, as in the former Soviet Union—feels particularly timely.” —The Smithsonian

“A stunning book, a powerful investigation, utterly compelling, at times stomach-churning and deeply shocking, but also by turns tragic, wistful and curiously uplifting. . . . There are timely questions here of the fragility of historical truth. Just as compelling, however, is the final part of the book and Heath’s own journey of investigation and discovery….This one will sit with me for long months to come.” —James Holland, The Telegraph

“This chillingly meticulous chronicle of a dozen escapees from a Nazi extermination camp underscores the mechanics of heroism and the fallibility of memory. . . . Heath painstakingly sifts through the conflicting accounts over the decades, analyzing discrepancies, details, and contradictions. Ultimately, he learned, just like the survivors, ‘of how great the distance could be between speaking out and being heard.’ Utterly absorbing in its powerfully detailed horror and inspiring redemption—a must-read in Holocaust studies.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“In 1944, 80 men—nearly all Jewish—were held captive at a Nazi death camp in Ponar, Lithuania. Tasked with the gruesome work of systemically excavating, counting, and burning the buried remains of tens of thousands of victims and knowing they would be killed once their work was complete, they spent weeks secretly digging a tunnel. In the chaos of their escape attempt, a dozen evaded pursuit and survived. . . . Heath eschews simple narrative, letting each man’s story develop fully, allowing inconsistencies and gaps in the record to remain. This chronicle about escape and survival is also about lives and stories lost and the fragility of both personal and collective memory. What starts as a recounting of a single, heroic incident becomes much more.” —Booklist (starred review)

"Chris Heath artis­ti­cal­ly unrav­els the com­plex strands of tes­ti­mo­ny and mem­o­ry sur­round­ing the death pits at Ponar where the Jews of Vil­na were mur­dered in cold blood begin­ning in 1941. . . . By jux­ta­pos­ing the sev­er­al points of view and recall in the post­war tes­ti­monies of the few Ponar sur­vivors of this remark­able feat, as well as issues raised by local wit­ness­es to the atroc­i­ties, Heath engages the read­er in con­fronting cru­cial ques­tions about Holo­caust mem­o­ry and memo­ri­al­iza­tion of the tens of thou­sands of Jew­ish vic­tims of the mass shoot­ings at Ponar, as well as the chal­lenges they pose to the writer. His prob­ing queries and con­sid­er­able artistry pro­vide a new lens through which to explore the Holo­caust on the East­ern front." —Judges' Remarks, National Jewish Book Awards

“A monumental act of reconstruction, this book helps restore historical specificity to an unfathomable reality.” —Jonathan Rosen, author of The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

“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

“Chris Heath has chronicled one the bleakest, most disturbing events of the Holocaust. Previously little known, it's the story of a dozen Jews who were among those ordered to exhume the mass graves at Ponar, where most of the Jewish population of Lithuania’s capitol, Vilna—‘the Jerusalem of the North’—had been lined up and shot by drunken units of Einsatzgruppen. Exhume and burn the bodies: that was the order. Because the criminals were hiding the evidence. ‘All roads lead to Ponar,’ poet and partisan Abba Kovner had said. ‘And Ponar means death.’ These prisoners, intensely alive in Heath’s crystalline prose, were sent to a hell deeper than the lowest circle of Dante, where they set about losing their minds and planning their escape. 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, New York Times bestselling author of Tough Jews and The AvengersAward-winning journalist CHRIS HEATH has written about a wide array of subjects for GQ, The Atlantic, Esquire and Vanity Fair. His story “18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, 1 Baboon, 1 Macaque, and 1 Man Dead in Ohio.” won the 2013 National Magazine Award for Reporting; his story “The Militiamen, the Governor and the Kidnapping That Wasn’t” was nominated for the 2023 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. He has also written about popular culture, including the books Pet Shop Boys, Literally and the 2004 UK bestseller Feel, about British pop star Robbie Williams. He co-wrote the lyrics for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Boy in the Dress, which premiered in Stratford in November 2019. Based in Brooklyn, Heath grew up south of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.