The Volunteer: One Man, an Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz

Witold Pilecki considered himself above all else, a Polish patriot. With the Nazi invasion of Poland, he joined the underground to fight for the freedom of his homeland. In 1940, when the Germans established a concentration camp at Auschwitz, Pilecki was "volunteered" by his underground superiors to be rounded up and become a prisoner there. The hope was that he would report on conditions in Auschwitz as well as organize an uprising by the prisoners to bring the camp down. Conditions within the camp deteriorated and the purpose of the camp changed from mere prison to a death camp for the elimination of the Jews of Poland and the rest of Europe. Pilecki hoped his reports, which he snuck out of the camp, would rouse the Allies to bomb Auschwitz.The author spent 5 years reviewing over 2000 primary sources in Polish and German to write this book. Some of these sources became available only in the 1970's and others were released with the fall of Communism in Poland and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989. The sources revealed that the Allies were well aware of the atrocities of Auschwitz, but did not consider the camp strategic in defeating the Germans.Unable to create a ground swell of resistance within the camp, Pilecki escaped to continue his fight against the Nazis on the outside. With the defeat of the Germans in Poland, Pilecki's fight continued against the Communists. For Witold Pilecki only a free and independent Poland was acceptable.This historical account is at times very dense and difficult to read. The hellish, inhumane treatment of prisoners in Auschwitz is horrific. Pilecki admitted that he could not really relate to the gassing and cremation of thousands of Jews. His efforts were focused on his Polish patriotism. For the sake of Witold Pilecki's son and for a sharper focus on the Polish history of WWII and the Communist era in Poland, this work helps to set the record straight.

Focussed on Polish prisoner 4859 Witold Pilecki who got himself imprisoned at Auschwitz (yes, volunteered) in September 1940 under the assumed name Tomasz Serfinski to protect his family, Jack Fairweather draws not only from sound scholarship and Polish, German, Swiss, Israeli, British, and American archives but from Pilecki family papers, interviews with his surviving daughter, son, and sister-in-law and colleagues, and Pilecki's own reports and monographs to the Polish underground and government-in-exile.  This gripping biography of Pilecki, a man impelled by principle at the sacrifice of family life to resist occupation first by the Nazis and then by the Soviets, interweaves with the Allied responses.  Aided by four Polish language translators, scrupulously researched, the book is richly illustrated maps, photographs, and former inmate drawings. The tri-photo of Pilecki / Serafinski, 1941, prisoner at Auschwitz (p. 136) and of Pilecki, 1947, prisoner of the post-war Polish government (p. 381), conveys searingly the trajectory of a heart-aching epoch. Jack Fairweather, himself eyewitness to present-day Iraq & Afghanistan wars as a journalist, contributes an invaluable chronicle to the literature of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, how the Nazi genocide unfolded, and the Allies' response.  He renders the complexities of Polish-Christian / Polish-Jewish relations with nuance.Why only now is the West learning of Witold Pilecki?  Therein lies another value of the book.In this 80th anniversary year of the outbreak of World War 2, The Volunteer:  One Man, An Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz should also top discussion group lists and university course syllabi.  History interrogates us.  How do we act in our own time?  For insight, we do well to consider Pilecki (in translation), "I have listened to many confessions of my friends before their deaths . . . They all reacted in the same unexpected manner: they regretted they hadn't given enough to other people, of their hearts, of the truth . . . the only thing that remained after them on Earth, the only thing that was positive and had a lasting value was what they could give of themselves to others" (p. 379).

I thought I had read a great deal about WWII and the Nazi’s atrocities. While reading this incredible book I realized I had been objective in my approach. This forces one to really understand subjectively what happened. Though difficult to read at times, I am very glad I did. An incredibly important and powerful book. I highly recommend it. This is a book every one who really wants to understand the atrocities committed by evil men given the power to do so.

I have read a plethora of Holocaust memoirs and books. I have been to Yad Vashem and DC Holocaust Museum. Yet, this book gave me a whole other perspective. I thought I knew everything possible to know about Auschwitz. I was wrong. This book tells us how Auschwitz was built and for whom - Polish POWs. This was long before the gas chambers were built or train loads of European Jews were brought there to be murdered. Yet it was still hellish. The POWs were treated abysmally. Such cruelty was very hard to read. I had never heard the Polish side of the war, so I learnt a lot. I don't know whether Witold Pilecki was a huge hero or a patriotic fool - probably the former. To volunteer to go to Auschwitz? I was sad to see how his life ended under Soviet Rule after the war. He should absolutely be recognized for his sacrifice to help his fellow Poles and attempt to warn the leaders of the war, the allies, about what was going on at Auschwitz after 1942 when Europe's Jews and others were being murdered en masse. Pity no one listened or did something to stop it.

A little known facet of WW2 brought to life. This story should be well known but sadly is not.

Das Buch haben wir einem Historiker zu Weihnachten geschenkt und es kam wohl so gut an, dass er es gar nicht mehr aus der Hand legen wollte!

I recommend this book to the young people, who must know that two opposite ideologies, totalitarianism and communism are both based on terror and violence. It doesn’t matter if you right or left, freedom must be granted.

Pilecki es un tipo fuera de serie y me alegro que hayan rescatado su historia. La historia de Polonia en la segunda guerra mundial es trágica y este libro relata la historia del que fue quizás el tipo más valiente dentro de una nación que resistió con todas sus fuerzas la invasión nazi, luego la sovietica, luego la invasión nazi completa y finalmente la invasión sovietica completa. Hay otros personajes a su altura, como Janusz Korczak, Irena Sendler y otros y cada uno merece su propio homenaje. Pero la historia de Pilecki retrata la resistencia a los regímenes totalitarios nazy sovieticos abarcando décadas. Sugiero leer este libro en conjunto con Varsovia 1944 de Norman Davies y Tierras de Sangre de Snyder.

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