Reviews: The Volunteer (6)

To many of us in the Polish community the story of Witold Pilecki is a very well known story of resistance and heroism. The problem has been the story has never been well known outside of that community. Due to the Russian Occupation of Poland that lasted until 1989, it was not in their interest to allow the stories of Polish heroism in the war came out. After all it was the great patriotic war when Russia came to the aid of Eastern Europe, no mention that they actually enabled the war by being Nazi Allies.

This excellently researched and written history of Witold Pilecki who volunteered to enter Auschwitz to gather intelligence and resistance is available in English at last. The Volunteer, researched and written by Jack Fairweather, is an excellent book, that shows how far the Poles went into their resistance. While French resistance is mythologised and over blown, the Polish resistance is rarely mentioned or avoided at best.

This is the true story of Witold Pilecki, who voluntarily got arrested by the Germans so that he would be sentenced to Auschwitz. Here he would organise acts of resistance and intelligence from the camp out to the wider world outside of Poland. Pilecki was a reserve army office, who had not been mobilised in the first wave, but had been called up just as the invasion began.

Like many of the soldiers he slowly fell back towards Warsaw, with each defeat, even though that Poles did hold out until October. From the beginning the Germans were executing Poles, and committed many war crimes against the civilian population, as well as those in uniform. It was when Pilecki met a fellow devasted officer her knew in Warsaw they resolved to set up a secret army to continue the fight.

With the Germans sweeping everything in front of them, Hitler had issued decrees for round ups for those groups, Jews, homosexuals, left-wing activists. They were all being sent to Auschwitz, and it would be Pilecki that would volunteer to be arrested and taken to the camp.

When the trainload of prisoners including Pilecki arrived at Auschwitz the guards beat them into the camp and shot others. It became clear that the Germans were intent on reducing all Poles to the state of an underclass known as the untermenschen. Life was brutal and hard and for many short. To ram this home the Germans on Christmas Eve installed a tree festooned with lights, but the presents piled underneath were the bodied of dead Poles.

It was Pilecki who found that trainloads of Jews were being taken to farmhouses in the woods and using converted farmhouses as gas chambers. At this time, he was unable to understand that this was the planned beginning of the extermination of Europe’s Jewish Population.

Pilecki remained loyal to the Government in Exile, in London and would later be arrested by the Russians. In May 1948, he was shot as a traitor to Poland after a show trial, by the Russians and their Communist friends. His papers and reports had been sealed by the Russians and the archives were sealed until the sixties but were still unavailable to the west until 1991.

He has been a hero in Poland, today his name should be known far wider. When the west allowed Russia to commit criminal acts and allowed them to suppress. Unlike in France, where the majority of the population collaborated with the Nazi Conquerors it suited the Western Allies, especially the French, to see these stories covered up.

The book finally shines a spotlight on a history some people wanted forgotten. Well done Jack Fairweather you have given light to a story of true heroism.

This book is extraordinary. Incredibly well written and effectively highlights the dreadful plight of all those imprisoned by the Germans in Auschwitz. A book that must be read in order to expose the true atrocities faced by so many - it will stay with you forever.

An absolutely riveting book it opens your eyes to the absolute cruelty of times it's set in. It's a story that had to be recorded so never again could anything like this can happen again ever

What reads like a spy thriller is actually an incredible true story which has been extensively researched and brought to prominence by the talented former war reporter.
Charting the history of Witold Pilecki, a Polish resistance agent who infiltrated Auschwitz in order to smuggle out evidence of the obscenity. Little did he know at that point how utterly horrific the atrocities would become within the two and a half years of his imprisonment; what started as a cruel detention centre mutated into an abominable death camp.
Pilecki formed an underground army to assist him in getting news out to the Allies, before eventually breaking out and continuing his resistance work.
An important piece of writing about a forgotten hero.
Many thanks to the publisher for a review copy via NetGalley.

An extremely important piece of history sadly not heard of outside of Poland. Very well-researched and well-written. Shows how Auschwitz actually became the death camp and the cruelty that prisoners had to go through all the time. It also shows how little was done and how much was simply ignored.

An excellent piece of writing, much research has been done, a very informative book. A must read.