Revelations of unimaginable courage: The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather (WH Allen, 2019)
This compelling nonfiction work proves there is much still to learn about the Holocaust, and heroism.
It tells a hitherto unknown story of an unheralded Polish officer tasked with organising resistance and garnering intelligence. The book’s stark opening sentence is riveting regarding his mission’s destination: "Witold Pilecki volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz."
Interned in September 1940, in messages smuggled via resistance networks he repeatedly urged the Allies to bomb the camp, long before the methodised murder of the Holocaust commenced. Pilecki remained in Auschwitz for two years; he escaped and continued fighting for the Polish underground and, post-war, in resistance campaigns against the communist regime.
Tragically, he was captured, tried and executed in 1948 by Poland’s Soviet-backed government, which deemed him to be a political threat not least because he had investigated Russian atrocities in his homeland during his post-Auschwitz missions.
For nearly 50 years after the war, Poland’s regime portrayed a propagandised version of Auschwitz in which only communist prisoners and Russian liberators could be heroes. Thus, Pilecki’s heroism was erased, and has only recently been uncovered as state archives have opened and Pilecki’s memoirs have been retrieved and translated.
This compelling nonfiction work proves there is much still to learn about the Holocaust, and heroism.
It tells a hitherto unknown story of an unheralded Polish officer tasked with organising resistance and garnering intelligence. The book’s stark opening sentence is riveting regarding his mission’s destination: "Witold Pilecki volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz."
Interned in September 1940, in messages smuggled via resistance networks he repeatedly urged the Allies to bomb the camp, long before the methodised murder of the Holocaust commenced. Pilecki remained in Auschwitz for two years; he escaped and continued fighting for the Polish underground and, post-war, in resistance campaigns against the communist regime.
Tragically, he was captured, tried and executed in 1948 by Poland’s Soviet-backed government, which deemed him to be a political threat not least because he had investigated Russian atrocities in his homeland during his post-Auschwitz missions.
For nearly 50 years after the war, Poland’s regime portrayed a propagandised version of Auschwitz in which only communist prisoners and Russian liberators could be heroes. Thus, Pilecki’s heroism was erased, and has only recently been uncovered as state archives have opened and Pilecki’s memoirs have been retrieved and translated.
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