The man who smuggled himself into Auschwitz

[IndianaGreen]

This is an extraordinary account, and kind of creepy after seeing The Boy in the Striped Pajamas a few days ago.

Page last updated at 02:18 GMT, Sunday, 29 November 2009

The man who smuggled himself into Auschwitz

By Rob Broomby
BBC News

Denis Avey is a remarkable man by any measure. A courageous and determined soldier in the World War II, he was captured by the Germans and imprisoned in a camp connected to the German's largest concentration camp, Auschwitz.

But his actions while in the camp - which he has never spoken about until now - are truly extraordinary. When millions would have done anything to get out, Mr Avey repeatedly smuggled himself into the camp.

Now 91 and living in Derbyshire, he says he wanted to witness what was going on inside and find out the truth about the gas chambers, so he could tell others. He knows he took "a hell of a chance".

"When you think about it in today's environment it is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous," he says.

"You wouldn't think anyone would think or do that, but that is how I was. I red hair and a temperament to match. Nothing would stop me."

He arranged to swap for one night at a time with a Jewish inmate he had come to trust. He exchanged his uniform for the filthy, stripy garments the man had to wear. For the Auschwitz inmate it meant valuable food and rest in the British camp, while for Denis it was a chance to gather facts on the inside.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8382457.stm

[greennina]

1. Something sounds fishy

He decided to keep quiet until now?

[Posteritatis]

2. Plenty of people carried all their stories of the war to or near their graves

I'd consider that fact before doing the reflexive "omg liar!" reaction.

[tabatha]

3. Someone else with whom he had no contact after the war

corroborated his story after the war on tape.

[NBachers]

7. Read the story, dick

[seeinfweggos]

12. my first reaction too

i think it is because we have already had two Holocaust stories that sounded too amazing to be true - and turned out to be just that. one was the guy who met his wife through the fence at a camp and the other was the person rescued from nazis by wolves.

[NYC_SKP]

4. A remarkable story. K and R. n/t

[anonymous171]

5. Wow. Now that is true courage. nt

[sudopod]

6. BALLS OF STEEL. nt

[bertman]

8. No. Actually he attributed it to his "red hair".

[sudopod]

9. I c wat u did thar. :) nt

[Joe Chi Minh]

13. If he was a red-headed stepchild, he'd probably been well and truly

toughened up!

[BlueMTexpat]

10. Wonderful story!

What I find amazing in general is that ANYONE survived these ordeals, when the intent was either to work concentration camp inmates to death (the policy of "natural attrition") or to gas and cremate them (the infamous "Final Solution," principally for Jews and other "undesirables"). Even Jewish prisoners and members of other groups specifically targeted for persecution (e.g., Roms, Jehovah's Witnesses, physically and mentally disabled persons, and homosexuals) who were able to work were at least temporarily spared from the gas chambers. In cases like this one, they were able to survive until the fall of the Nazi Reich. There were also many unsung heroes, including Germans, who enabled the survival of those who did manage to survive.
While the entire era was replete to saturation with deliberate evil on a scale beyond any theretofore imagined ... and hopefully NEVER to be seen again ... there were also many heartening examples of individual courage. Too many of these stories will never be known to the public, especially in the cases of non-Jewish target group members. In the case of Jews who were spared, there have been several memorial projects, such as those on record at Yad Vashem in Israel, where those who survived recorded their experiences and, insofar as they were able, named those who assisted them so that those examples of courage would also be remembered.

[struggle4progress]

11. Witold Pilecki

... During World War II, Pilecki smuggled himself into Auschwitz under the false name Tomasz Serafinski in 1940 and began recruiting members for an underground resistance group that he organized into a coherent movement ... By 1942, Pilecki's resistance group had learned of the existence of the gas chambers and began work on several plans to liberate Auschwitz, including one in which the RAF would bomb the walls or Free Polish paratroopers would fly in from Britain. In 1943, when Pilecki realized that the Allies did not have plans to liberate the camp, he escaped with two other prisoners after he voluntarily spent 2½ years at the camp smuggling out its darkest secrets to the Allies. The documents released from the Polish Archives also included a Gestapo manhunt alert following Pilecki's escape ... http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Witold_Pilecki.html