3.8 of 5 Votes: 2

English

Clube do Autor

Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble

A Última Testemunha De Auschwitz (2011)
About book: I was fascinated by The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz. Denis Avey's life has been pretty unbelievable, and I appreciate that his book seems to capture so much of his 'every man' persona. Auschwitz was just one part of an interesting chronicle, and I think for me that most of the book's weight came from Avey's WWII experiences overall. This definitely should be on the list for people who enjoy reading about that war, especially as it provides insight into experiences not usually chronicled. I've read a few of the Holocaust survivor testimonies now and the vast majority are impactful and well written. The story Avey tells though has a twist. The first part of the story details how Avey ended up as a POW bearing witness to the atrocities at Auschwitz . His account is fascinating covering escapes from torpedoed ships, fighting in the desert against Rommel - it's a whole story all in itself. That story is fascinating but then his account of switching places with a Jewish prisoner and getting to see the world they lived in at Auschwitz is incredible. I would agree with a number of the reviewers who are disappointed that this part of the story is not covered in more detail - a fair point since that is the premise of the books title. Without spoiling what it amounts to is him spending two nights in the camp after work and going back in the morning. He gets to eat and sleep with the Jewish prisoners and then switches back to his POW status. Definitely could be covered with more detail but I suspect that it's a truthful account of a brief part of his stay in Auschwitz and that the publishers seized on it as a great premise on which to sell the book. While other reviewers have said Avey is self centred and unheroic in his focus on steering clear of others in his attempts to escape, I can not agree. At one point in the early stages of the war he has landed a cushy assignment in South Africa and chooses to return to the front lines and fight alongside his colleagues. At many other periods in the camps he details helping others by securing packages from the red cross or through the switching places with a Jewish prisoner who was then able to get a better meal for a few days. What others may have seized on is the survival instinct that got him through so many of these events - there has to be an ability to understand when you can help and when you can't otherwise he would likely not be here to tell his story. His compassion for others comes through clearly in his feelings about friends and those he tries to reconnect with after the war.I enjoyed the fact that Avey kept the story going after the war ended, recounting amazing things he found out later about his wartime years. As with most of these testimonies it's a deeply personal account that is well written and interesting for the reader. If you like WW2 history or true stories this is a great read.

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An interesting enough story. However,the horrors of Auschwitz have been more graphically and tellingly portrayed by those who actually spent some time in that awful place, rather than just a couple of random nights. In fact, very little of the book is about the time he spent in Auschwitz, and tells more of his other service in the war, and the subsequent search for some of those he met during his time of enforced labour as a POW. I didn't particularly warm to the writer - he came across (to me at least) as rather pig-headed and selfish. And the repercussions he risked, not only for himself but for his fellow prisoners, to get into Auschwitz, were not worth it. Ultimately, a disappointing read, which I wouldn't recommend. There are many others which better portray the depravity of Auschwitz.

I had always been cautious about reading this being sceptical about the swap with the Auschwitz inmate. Having read it I don't doubt that the author suffered greatly during the war and witnessed appalling things but it has not altered my scepticism about the main element of the book - that is to say the swap which is covered on,y very briefly in the book.For me the most moving part was the detail of his friend from the camp, Ernst, which was taken from ernst's own videoed transcripts. I am also sorry to say that I found the author being portrayed as rather arrogant and in a rather unsympathetic light and at times felt like I was reading a war time story from a Boys Own book

Not bad, but I expected more. Some parts of it are a bit hard to believe.

3.8 of 5 Votes: 2

9044329529 (ISBN13: 9789044329520)

English

The House Of Books

Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble

De Man Die Naar Auschwitz Wilde (2011)
About book: The extraordinary true story of a British soldier who fought during WWII and spent two nights in Buna-Monowitz (Auschwitz III) is detailed in this book.This was one of the most compelling books I have ever read – detailing mans inhumanity to man in graphic detail. I did not like the narrator / author, but this can not take away from the risks he took and the testament that he provides of the horrors of war / persecution.I would recommend that everyone read this book just to understand why they must always stand up for other people (even if is only to telephone for assistance). THE MAN WHO BROKE INTO AUSCHWITZ by Denis Avey with Rob Broomby is not an easy book to review. It is a memoir of a former British soldier who decided after his capture and incarceration in a German POW camp, located next to the outskirts of Auschwitz, to switch clothing and identity with a Jewish inmate, so he could witness what went on inside the death camps. These actions take place about halfway through the memoir and from that point on the reader is riveted to Denis Avey’s story. The first third of the book recounts his early years in England and his boredom that led him to join the British army in 1939. We are taken through his training and finally his experiences fighting first against the Italians in North Africa and then once the Italians lost Tobruk the Germans led by Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corp. It is during the battle against the Germans at Sidi Rezegh that he is captured and the essence of what he would experience is recounted.Evaluating this type of memoir places the reviewer in a quandary. You can comment on style and language and the demeanor of the author, but based on what he has survived and overcome, is that fair? For me, Avey’s story is an emotional journey that takes him through the savagery of warfare in the Libyan dessert as a driver of a carrier vehicle with a mounted Bren gun on top. He sees his friends blown to bits by Italian and German artillery and bombers. He himself is wounded and contracts malaria and in the end winds up in a German field hospital where he miraculously recovers. The first question that must be asked is why Avey, who did not have to enlist, join the army. Avey states that “I hadn’t joined up for King and country but youthful adventure,” but what began as somewhat of a lark morphed into “a moral conflict for me at the very time I could do little about it.” (128) Avey matured as a person because of his experiences and for him morality dominated his mindset.Avey’s survival can be explained through luck, but also a state of mind. Throughout the memoir he describes the abhorrent conditions he experienced but as he states, “my body was in a shocking state, but in my head, I wasn’t a prisoner at all. The enemy had done many things to me but they hadn’t captured my mind.” (98) After being captured in North Africa he attempted to escape a number of times and he was labeled as a “habitual troublemaker” which led to his transfer to a POW labor camp in the Polish town of Oswiecim where he noticed people who looked starved with shaved heads wearing “ill fitting striped shirts and trousers that were more like pyjamas.” (105) Avey worked on a massive factory that was being built by I.G. Farben to manufacture “buna,” or synthetic rubber. Avey realized earlier that “everywhere, in the nooks and crannies of this industrial nightmare, were poor creatures in their filthy zebra uniforms, many too weak to stand, led alone shift and carry. I knew by now this was no ordinary labour camp. They were deliberately worked to death.” (107) For Avey, the knowledge that as a British POW he was not going to be worked to death allowed him to contemplate how he could assist these Jewish inmates. He was able to get a letter out to the sister of a Jew named Ernst that allowed a package to be returned to him that assisted Ernst’s survival of what is referred to as Auschwitz III, the Nazi death camp.Avey who became obsessed with the immorality of the Holocaust decided to change places with Ernst. This was accomplished on two separate occasions where Avey experienced the barracks, the smell from the crematoria, the beatings, and the total inhumanity that was the “Final Solution.” For Avey he wanted to bear witness to the plight of the Jews. He wanted to tell the world of their suffering and the savagery of Auschwitz I, II, and III. Throughout his experiences Avey was careful not to establish close relations with anyone, except for Hans a Dutch Jew he assisted, and Ernst, because you never knew how quickly you would be chosen for a detail to bury them. As the Russians moved in from the east, Avey and thousands of others were forced to March westward in the middle of a frozen winter. Avey broke away and miraculously made his way through Silesia, Czechoslovakia, and Germany. Finally after passing through Nuremburg he came across the American army where he was taken to an officer whose description sounded like George S. Patton.From this point Avey describes his post war struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at a time when no one knew what it was and people were interested in talking about victory not the calamity facing soldiers who fought in the war and who were victims that people did not recognize. Avey describes his battles with nightmares, jumpiness, his inability to speak about his experiences, his violent temper, stomach pains, and loss of memory. These symptoms as well as the loss of vision in one I that grew cancerous from a beating during his incarceration plagued him for years after the war. Eventually he would overcome them and lead a very successful life, as Avery says during the day, but at night it was a different story. The most heartwarming and emotionally wrenching part of the book is the last third as he describes how a reporter Rob Broomby traced Avey’s experiences for a news story and he located Ernst’s sister, leading to a reunion with Avey. Further they uncovered a DVD of Ernst’s life in the United States after the war. Avey never knew what happened to him and this emotional catharsis allowed him to open up and went a long way in his own recovery. The book is sad in parts, uplifting at the same time, but it serves as another voice, a witness to man’s inhumanity to man, and as Avey points out by recounting his experiences hopefully people will gain an understanding of genocide and will not allow it to take place again.

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Mooi boek waarin de Tweede Oorlog beschreven wordt vanuit de ogen van een soldaat die Groot-Brittannië diende in Afrika. Over de gevechten in Afrika werd er minder verteld op school in de geschiedenislessen, dus in dat opzicht was dit boek zeker leerrijk. Het gevangenschap in Auschwitz III is natuurlijk gruwelijk, wat hij schrijft, is niet echt nieuwe informatie. Toch beschrijft hij het levendig en voel je mee dat het een gruwelijke tijd was, een gevecht met jezelf en met waarden en normen. Vooral de lijdensweg achteraf van Avey na de oorlog vond ik hallucinant en ontluisterend. Voor zij die over de oorlog willen lezen door de ogen van een soldaat verteld, is dit boek zeker een aanrader.

Soms is non-fictie moeilijker te geloven dan fictie...De eerste paragraaf zegt het helemaal :'Dit is een heel belangrijk boek; een tijdige herinnering aan de gevaren waartegenover iedere maatschappij zich gesteld ziet zodra intolerantie en racisme de overhand krijgen. Denis Avey, die inmiddels drieënnegentig jaar oud is, wil dat zijn boek ons eraan herinnert dat fascisme en genocide niet zijn verdwenen. in zijn eigen woorden : 'Het kan hier ook gebeuren.'Het zou inderdaad overal kunnen gebeuren waar men toestaat dat het vernislaagje van de beschaving afslijt of met boze opzet of destructieve oogmerken wordt weggepoetst.'