Two Stories of Bravery

In September 1940, with calm deliberation, Polish Army officer Witold Pilecki walked into a Nazi German street round-up in Warsaw. He had volunteered for a potentially suicidal secret undercover mission for the Polish Underground—to get himself arrested by the Germans and sent to Auschwitz as a prisoner.

His mission: smuggle out intelligence about this new German concentration camp, and build a resistance organization among the prisoners with the ultimate goal of liberating the camp.

He was able to build a resistance organization which smuggled out regular reports describing the full horrors of daily life inside the camp, the building of the gas chambers and the mass-extermination of the Jews. His clandestine intelligence reports were among the first eyewitness evidence that the Allies received of the atrocities taking place at Auschwitz.

Barely surviving nearly three years of starvation, disease and brutality, Pilecki escaped in April 1943. His comprehensive report on Auschwitz, written in 1945 and suppressed by the postwar Polish communist regime for nearly 50 years, is being published in English for the first time, in a book called “The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery.” In the foreword to the book, Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Joseph Schudrich states, “If heeded, Pilecki’s early warnings might have changed the course of history.”

Pilecki wrote about his bold plan to liberate Auschwitz with Allied support—a plan that was deemed too ambitious and impractical to succeed, so it did not come to fruition.

Sadly, he was arrested in 1948 for being a western spy and was executed and expunged from Polish history. In addition to Pilecki’s observations, the book contains 40 photos, illustrations and maps.

As impossible as it may seem, Pilecki is not the only man who entered Auschwitz voluntarily. A similar book, which is also captivating, is called “The Man who Broke into Auschwitz.” It’s the story of Denis Avey, a British soldier.

Avey was captured during World War II and sent to a labor camp where he worked alongside inmates from Auschwitz, nicknamed “stripeys” after their uniforms.

Avey, a headstrong, battle-hardened soldier, was told about the mass extermination of Jews and experienced the sickening smell from a nearby crematorium, and he wanted to see for himself what was happening in Auschwitz.

While conditions in his own labor camp were appalling, the food was better and treatment less harsh than in Auschwitz.

And as a prisoner of war, Red Cross packages occasionally made it through containing chocolate and cigarettes, which could then be bartered for better provisions.

After weeks of preparation, including bribes to a guard, he twice swapped uniforms with a Dutch Jew of roughly the same height to sneak into the camp where he spent the night.

On both occasions the men managed to change back into their own clothes, despite the risk of discovery and certain death.

“I did my homework over weeks and weeks, but the common denominator of all that was a tremendous amount of luck,” Avey said.

“My life depended on 50 cigarettes—25 in, 25 out. The guard could have shot me easily.” His motivation for risking his life was twofold: to put one over on the enemy and to see what was happening so he could tell the world of the atrocities.

He recorded seeing piles of corpses, which were carried away by fellow inmates who showed no emotion. If body carriers collapsed, they were beaten or killed. Men were pulled from lineups and taken away to be gassed, but there was no protest, they were too weak.

Avey described the foul air of the sleeping area and putrid soup the men were served which he dared not eat.

He held whispered conversations with the inmate lying next to him, finding out what he could about the concentration camp.

“Auschwitz was hell on earth. It was a ghastly, terrifying experience.”

After surviving the camp, and the death march at the end of the war, he tried to tell the army about his experiences, but nobody cared and he finally gave up and kept silent for 60 years.

He had regular nightmares and woke up in a cold sweat for many years after the war. He still recalls his experiences today.

During a radio interview a few years ago he told his story, and since then he has gained recognition for his bravery from Holocaust organizations and politicians. Despite its dark content, the story ends on a note of hope.

Both books are suspenseful and  inspiring, recounting bravery that few of us can imagine.