The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz
Denis Avey

The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz is the true story of a British soldier who marched willingly into Buna-Monowitz, the concentration camp known as Auschwitz III.

Denis Avey was being held in a POW labour camp near Auschwitz III. He had heard of the brutality meted out to the prisoners there and he was determined to witness what he could.

He hatched a plan to swap places with a Jewish inmate and smuggled himself into the camp. He spent the night there on two occasions and experienced at first-hand the cruelty of a place where slave workers had been sentenced to death through labour.

Astonishingly, he survived.

For decades he couldn’t bring himself to revisit the past that haunted his dreams, but now Denis Avey feels able to tell the full story – a tale as gripping as it is moving – which offers us a unique insight into the mind of an ordinary man whose moral and physical courage are almost beyond belief.

The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz is the fascinating and truly sad story of the horrors of WWII. Denis Avey’s memoir tells of his time as a prisoner of war (POW), as well as his time as a soldier fighting side by side with friends who tragically lost their lives.

I won’t go into the details of Avey’s story, as although everyone knows what happened in places such as Auschwitz III, I personally think the book has a much larger impact when the reader is left to discover his personal experiences on their own, without knowing the details beforehand.

For decades Avey had to live with the harrowing things he’d witnessed during his time as a POW, as after the war no one was willing to accept what had really happened. Now an old man, he feels he can finally let people know about the two separate occasions that he willingly marched into Auschwitz III concentration camp.

Although WWII accounts aren’t new to the world of literature, Denis Avey’s story offers a unique perspective on the subject and it’s clear to see how important it was to him that he told his story. The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz deserves to be held in the same high regard as Anne Frank’s diary and If This Is a Man by Primo Levi (who was actually held in Auschwitz III).

I’m a very firm believer in the fact that no one should ever forget what happened in WWII, and the pain and suffering that millions of people went through because of one man’s ideals. The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz will allow generations to remember these facts long after there are no WWII veterans left to tell their stories. I’d highly recommend this book to anyone, and I defy them not to be moved by what this remarkable man witnessed.

Rating: ★★★★★