Majdanek concentration camp
Vrba was born Walter Rosenberg in Topoľčany, Czechoslovakia (part of Slovakia from 1993), one of the four children of Helena Rosenberg, née Gruenfeldová, and her husband, Elias. Vrba's mother was from Zbehy; his maternal grandfather, Bernat Grünfeld, an Orthodox Jew from Nitra, was killed in the Majdanek concentration camp. Vrba took the name Rudolf Vrba after his escape from Auschwitz.