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.

'Clearly written, superbly researched, it's a fascinating reminder of an unjustly neglected story about the Holocaust' David Herman

'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