Rudolf ` Rudi ' Vrba ( September 11 , 1924 - March 27 , 2006 ) , was a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia in Canada . His birth name was Walter Rosenberg . Rudolf `` Rudi '' Vrba , born Walter Rosenberg ( September 11 , 1924 â `` March 27 , 2006 ) was a Slovak-Canadian professor of pharmacology at the University of British Columbia , who came to public attention during the Second World War when , in April 1944 , he escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland with the first information about the camp that the Allies regarded as credible .