Overview

The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz is the extraordinary true story of a British soldier who marched willingly into the notorious concentration camp, Buna-Monowitz, known as Auschwitz III. In the summer of 1944, Denis Avey was being held in a British POW labor camp, E715, near the site of 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 his sector of the camp. He spent the night there on two occasions and experienced firsthand the cruelty of a place where slave workers had been sentenced to death through labor. Astonishingly, he survived to witness the aftermath of the Death March in which thousands of prisoners were murdered by the Nazis as the Soviet Army advanced. After his own long trek across central Europe, he was repatriated to Britain. 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 unique insight into the mind of an ordinary man whose moral and physical courage are almost beyond belief.

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This is a most important book, and a timely reminder of the dangers that face any society once intolerance and racism take hold.-- Sir Martin Gilbert A plainspoken, moving story...a unique war story from a brave man. -- Kirkus Reviews An important and profound book. -- Washington Times

Author Information

Denis Avey is a British World War II veteran who was born in Essex, England, in 1919. He joined the army in 1939 and fought in the desert campaigns of North Africa, where he was captured and held by the German military in a camp adjacent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. In 2010, he was named a British Hero of the Holocaust by the British Government. He currently lives in Derbyshire, England. Rob Broomby is a BBC journalist who first chronicled Denis Avey's story of breaking into the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Rob Broomby is a BBC journalist who first chronicled Denis Avey's story of breaking into the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Martin Gilbert, one of Britain's most distinguished historians, was knighted in 1995. A fellow of Merton College, Oxford, he is also the official biographer of Winston Churchill. Among his books are The Holocaust, The Second World War, Churchill: A Life, Auschwitz and the Allies, The First World War, and Never Again. James Langton trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. An AudioFile Earphones Award winner, he has performed many voice-overs and narrated numerous audiobooks, including the international bestseller The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud by Julia Navarro, The Virtues of War by Steven Pressfield, and The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan.

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