A Rebel in Auschwitz: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Fought the s from Inside the Camp

by Jack Fairweather

With exclusive access to previously hidden diaries, family and camp survivor accounts, and recently declassified files, critically acclaimed and award-winning journalist Jack Fairweather brilliantly portrays the remarkable man who volunteered to face the unknown in the name of truth and country. This extraordinary and eye-opening account of the Holocaust invites us all to bear witness.

Occupied Warsaw, Summer 1940:

Witold Pilecki, a Polish underground operative, accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands interned at a new concentration camp, report on Nazi crimes, raise a secret army, and stage an uprising. The name of the camp -- Auschwitz.

Over the next two and half years, and under the cruellest of conditions, Pilecki's underground sabotaged facilities, assassinated Nazi officers, and gathered evidence of terrifying abuse and mass murder. But as he pieced together the horrifying Nazi plans to exterminate Europe's Jews, Pilecki realized he would have to risk his men, his life, and his family to warn the West before all was lost. To do so meant attempting the impossible -- but first he would have to escape from Auschwitz itself...

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, Holocaust, World War II, Historical, War

352 pages, Paperback

Published October 7, 2021

About the author

Jack Fairweather, is a British journalist and author.

He has been a correspondent for the Washington Post and the Daily Telegraph, where he served as the Baghdad and Persian Gulf bureau chief of British troops. His reporting during the Iraq War earned him Britain’s top press award.

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Rebel in Auschwitz: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Fought the Nazis from Inside the Camp by Jack Fairweather tells of Witold Pilecki, a Polish underground operative, who accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands interned at a new concentration camp, report on Nazi crimes, raise a secret army, and stage an uprising. The name of the camp -- Auschwitz. With exclusive access to previously hidden diaries, family and camp survivor accounts, and recently declassified files, critically acclaimed and award-winning journalist Jack Fairweather brilliantly portrays the remarkable man who volunteered to face the unknown in the name of truth and country. This extraordinary and eye-opening account of the Holocaust invites us all to bear witness.

Occupied Warsaw, in the Summer of 1940: Over the next two and half years, and under the cruellest of conditions, Pilecki's underground sabotaged facilities, assassinated Nazi officers, and gathered evidence of terrifying abuse and mass murder. But as he pieced together the horrifying Nazi plans to exterminate Europe's Jews, Pilecki realized he would have to risk his men, his life, and his family to warn the West before all was lost. To do so meant attempting the impossible -- but first he would have to escape from Auschwitz itself...

[EmG ReadsDaily · Rating 4 out of 5]

The many atrocities documented in this book are incredibly difficult to comprehend.

[Alisha Brook · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

[Katharina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story illuminates evil so horrific it’s hard to comprehend. It’s a captivating read, but one that may leave you with nightmares.

I echo this cry: “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Rev. 6:10

[Joe Holman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those incredible historical nuggets that is a real gem. The author brings Witold Pilecki to life and lets us get a good look at a real hero. Most of us have heard of Auschwitz but very few know that there was an active resistance group in that terrible place. And fewer yet who know of Pilecki.

Definitely a story worth knowing. I am very glad to have read it.

[leila ⋆.˚౨ৎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4✩

Wow. I am left amazed after reading this book. The courage Witold had was really unique, especially in that sort of situation during WWII people might only care about themselves to ensure that their family and they themselves are saved. That period was also one, where you cannot trust anybody and Witold, time and time again, was brave enough to recruit members for the underground as well as planning people's (and later in the book his own) escape. He fought for independence of Poland making him clearly a hero of his time and I was completely shocked when he was being shot for that exact reason. He survived so many hardship just to be punished with his life? That really left me extremely upset.

Witold's story taught me that if you have the willpower and determination for something, you have to do it no matter what the odds against you are. In my opinion, he did his part. He tried so hard for his and his comrade's voices to be heard and spur the allies into action to liberate the camp. It's clearly not his fault that they dismissed his reports and did not prioritise the millions of prisoners being killed in that deathcamp.

This was a wonderful book and the descriptions were very detailed so that I could follow each step clearly and I really liked the addition of photos of the real people who aided Witold in his mission.

[leticia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witold sounds like one of those people that just make you believe that there can be kindness in the world among so much evil. I found him to be such a brave man seeing that he volunteered and was allowed to be captured just to see what the Nazis were doing in Auschwitzs. Time and time again he trusted individuals in the camp and assisted them with escaping even though being caught could cost him his life. He sacrificed his life, a life with his family, and witnessed the genocide of Jews in the camp. I am still shocked and upset that his life was taken from his just like that, after all he did. I cannot imagine what his wife and children felt. It was a great book but it was hard to read due to the fact that the Holocaust and WWII are such a dark period in history

[Sandra Larkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story offers a new angle to Holocaust literature. It's a powerful biography of a man who accepts a mission for the Polish resistance to infiltrate Auschwitz, gain intelligence, raise an underground resistance cell, and stage a breakout, if possible.

[leanne hedley · Rating 5 out of 5]

One if the most interesting book i have read based on the holocaust

[John Winkelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Young Adult version from the high school library, the style made easier reading for a very difficult subject.

[Lyndie W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!

[Rebecca McCurry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look at Auschwitz I will never forget. Any student of history should read this.

[Captin Spitsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holy shit this is awesome

[Tammy Tosti · Rating 4 out of 5]

After my teenager read this one she told me that it was a must read considering our mutual love of historical fiction. We both are drawn to books about the Holocaust which I know is not an easy subject matter.

This is a well-written/well-researched book about a hero of the Holocaust who escapes Auschwitz and his attempts to tell the outside world what was happening even if they didn’t believe him.

[Nikki H. Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has studied different perspectives and stories about the Holocaust her entire life, and spends a good portion of her time teaching it to her students, this book came as a shock.

I had never before read a personal account of someone’s experience in Auschwitz in the beginning of the war – when Auschwitz was not yet a death camp; when it’s goal wasn’t to exterminate the Jews … I didn’t know a time like this existed. In my readings and learnings, it just seemed to appear and then exist. It wasn’t this growing entity that was built by the hands of the prisoners.

Jack Fairweather pieces together Witold Pilecki’s story as a Polish underground operative who purposefully gets captured and sent to Auschwitz with the plan to uncover the truth behind the thousands send to a new concentration camp, report on Nazi crimes, and help raise a secret army – all with the goal of staging an uprising and perhaps an outbreak. This was before anyone really knew the name Auschwitz. Before they knew what was happening there. Before what was happening there had even truly started.

Risking his life, Pilecki fought for the Polish people – to save their country from being taken from them. But along his journey, he helped save many others, too.

This book was eye-opening, and I have already lent my copy to a friend to help spread the knowledge of what happened back then.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an adult, I still know shamefully little about modern history. All of my high school history that I can remember was domestic. I have been learning a lot of international history when travelling over the years, and it’s been incredible.

I visited Auschwitz in 2018. It was one of the most harrowing places I have been (rivalled only by the Killing Fields in Cambodia). I saw a gas chamber first hand, and saw belonging of those who were murdered, and it turned my stomach. No number of first-hand accounts I watch or read will ever give me insight into how any person can treat another like that.

This book gave an interesting perspective I haven’t come across before. It follows Witold as he volunteers to become a prisoner with the aim of cultivating a resistance to stage an uprising in the camp. We follow, through Witold’s experience, as conditions get worse, and the gassing begins.

It’s a short read, at just under 250 pages, but it’s by no means an easy read. It’s extremely thoroughly researched through many resources, without being bogged down in technical language. But it’s obviously very heavy content.

As I am sure you can imagine, be wary of triggers before diving in. Some of the descriptions are graphic and there isn’t a lot of sugar coating going on.

Thanks to Scholastic for a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

[Erikka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This man is an absolute badass. I can’t give too many details, as that would detract from this astonishing book, but this dude literally asked to be sent to Auschwitz, ran the underground for years, then broke out and continued running the Polish underground. Absolutely legendary. While the book occasionally gets in the weeds a bit, and there are a LOT of Polish names that thankfully do not require me to pronounce them or memorize them, it is a tale of courage, empathy, patriotism, and kindness that holds its place in the pantheon of Holocaust memoir/biographies.

[Patrick Trent · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of a Polish man that was willing captured to give inside information about Auschwitz and develop a resistance group within the concentration camp. Well told and a sobering reminder of the horrifying events of the Nazi war of domination and extermination.

[Carson Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book “A Rebel In Auschwitz” is a true story about a Jewish man who fought the Nazis from inside the camp. Occupied Warsaw, Summer 1940 the Jewish people had an organized underground camp who fought the nazis in secret. The man who led this was Witold Pilecki; he was a jew in the camp who didn't want to be in there and didn't like the hard labor they gave them. They built things like burning chambers, gas chambers. The Rebels assassinated Nazi officers, gathering evidence for nazi officers to prove their mass murder. When he did this he didn't realize that he had to sacrifice his own life and the life of others to succeed in this rebelion.
Witold the leader was a nice clean, well taken care of man, a good person. When he went into the camp he changed emotionally, mentally and physically. He got skinny, weak and frail from all this work that the Nazis gave to them in the camp but he somehow had the energy and the mind to get out of that camp and help the European jews escape the camps. He and his men found evidence of a non-official officer with 475 cases of assisted murder and 2,730 cases sentenced to him.
Since this is a true story the idea of it or what i get out of it is most definitely. Bravery, determination, heart, teamwork, revenge, power, hope and many more. But they all connect back to a couple things with the strive to get out and get the Nazis in prison. But most of all they are good to have in real life and in situations like that.
This book definitely gives me the message that the bigger people with power, size and strength don't always win the war and you can overcome bad things and bad people if you believe you can and with the help of people you could do anything. It's definitely a good book. I liked it because the old wars is the stuff I'm interested in and it's in that time period of the great wars. What was interesting is what the Nazis had the jews do in the camp and what they did to them and nobody knew the horror that happened behind the camp walls.
This book is definitely worth reading because it gives real world things and examples of what happened in the camp. This is for people maybe of older age but pretty much all ages because all ages have the interest in WW2. People who would read this would be people interested in gun wars, especially history gurus or addicts. Yes I would recommend this book to people because it is really good and interesting and information about a specific bad place in history and gives people a look of what happened in WW2.
I think this would connect back to the days when there was slavery in the U.S and how the slaves were treated badly but also the jews in the camp were treated badly also and work gets beaten, gets sick and dies. The themes that would also be connected would be sticking together, and hope by the slaves and the jews stick together to help each other.

[Tyler Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reason that this book received its four-star rating was due to the fact that the whole book altogether was great. This book went in-depth on how a resistance fighter from Poland. He was able to make it underground in the largest concentration camp of WWII. The author did a great job of explaining how long things really took inside of the camp. The author used the names of all of the major players in the camp underground and showed how. There was a lot of coloration that had to be used in order to get the word to the allies.

The book was able to use pictures in order to help the reader understand the layout of the camp. The author also did a good job of helping the reader put names to faces showing the faces of prisoners. He went over how there were just so many things to do in order to make the underground work. The only thing that the author could do better was just use the names a little less and just say who did it and not explain over again what the plan was for what the prisoners were doing.

“Colummns of broken men dragged the fallen between them or pushed the dead in wheelbarrows.”(53)
This quote shows the death and suffering of the camp. The reason that I love this quote is that even just with this one quote you can see the whole book and how it was just suffering and death. Even without ever opening the book you can see well into the future.

A brief summary of this book. At the very start of the book you meet the main character and find out that he is a commander in the Polish army. At the start of the book, it is seen that he receives orders to deploy to the front with Germany at the start of WWII. He gathers men from his small town to ride in his cavalry unit. His unit then gets ambushed by a German Panzer division. He then rides to Poland's capital city and creates an underground while the Germans are there. He then hears of a place called Auschwitz and decides to go there and give intel to the Allies.

He then arrives at Auschwitz and quickly adapts to the new reality of his new life. He quickly realized that a prisoner uprising would never work. So he starts to build an underground within the camp. The underground quickly gains members and so they are able to expand their operations within the camp. He meets a few people who are getting out of the camp soon and asks them if they would be willing to send a message to the outside world. Tell of the world of the atrocities committed in Auschwitz.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of Witold Pilecki is as harrowing as it is unfathomable. Instead of being rounded up like so many dissidents, Poles and Jews among others for transport to what would eventually become death camps, the most notorious of which was arguably Auschwitz, Pilecki voluntarily gives himself up for imprisonment. He is spearheading an underground resistance campaign to gather intel on the detention centers, the camps, the incarceration, in order to send cryptic reports to the head of the Polish Resistance in Warsaw. But the wheels turn agonizingly slow as the Holocaust unfurls in its fury. Great masses are gassed, shot, dead from exhaustion and disease while the network of Pilecki’s movement desperately tries to get word out of the grotesque circumstances on the inside. All while trying to stay alive and undetected. While this is meant to be the YA version of Fairweather’s adult story “The Volunteer”, the story does not hold back much. It is still a brutal account of Auschwitz’s horrors. Heavily researched and supplemented with primary resource visuals of collaborators and kapos, perhaps a more disturbing fallout from the efforts of the resistance movement was the failure of the Allies to act on the information they were provided about the atrocities being committed within the walls of the concentration camps. Was it a communication breakdown? Mobility? Trust factors? Resource issues? Agenda? A devastating chapter in human history should never be forgotten or relegated to encyclopedic dustbins. These stories deserve to be told. They MUST be shared. Witold Pilecki was a hero and stories like this properly preserve that legacy.

[Tyler Beane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Rebel in Auschwitz: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Fought the Nazis from Inside the Camp

This book is about Witold Pilecki; a Polish cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader during World War 2. It shows his experiences inside Auschwitz and his plan for the Polish resistance. Jack Fairweather provides another point of view of the Holocaust by using Witold Pilecki's impact/story of the Holocaust. To continue my thoughts on this book, here's the rest of my review:

One thing that really stood out to me was how the book didn't leave out the extremely hard stuff. It talks about the terrible conditions in Auschwitz and how people were treated so badly just because of who they were and what they believed. But even with all this tragedy, the protagonist finds ways to push back against the camp guards, like creating a whole resistance, and smuggling food, and relaying messages outside the walls. It made me think about how important it is to stand up for what's right, even when it's scary.

The characters in this book felt extremely real. Witold is the kind of like the hero you'd root for in any story, but what he’s fighting against is much worse than in most stories. He's fighting to keep his humanity in tact. They show that friendship and looking out for each other can make a huge difference in survival. Reading about the camp officers who are always making life harder for the Auschwitz victims made me angry because they were so cruel, but it was important for the story to portray them for what they were. It showed how people can lose their humanity when they hold so much power over others.

What I learned from this book is a lot. It not only teaches us about the history of our world, it's a story about fighting for your dignity. It made me grateful for the life I have and made me want to be a better person.

Talking about themes, resistance and survival are huge in this book. It shows that even in the worst times, people can support each other and have faith. The theme of dehumanization was tough to read about but important for understanding how awful Auschwitz was. It's something I think everyone needs to know about, so nothing like it ever happens again. Reading "A Rebel in Auschwitz" wasn't easy because of the sad and scary parts, but I'm glad I read it. It makes you believe in that there are amazing people in the world who can do things like this. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about history from a personal point of view. It's about real people who faced unbelievable challenges and how they managed to overcome them.

In conclusion, "A Rebel in Auschwitz" is a powerful, eye-opening book. It taught me about courage, and the importance of standing up for others and what you believe in. If you're interested in history or stories about bravery, this book is for you.

[Terry Maguire · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely compulsive read- meticulously researched and impossible to put down. This is the young reader's adaptation of Fairweather's The Volunteer. It relates the story of WWII hero Witold Pilecki, who volunteered to go to Auschwitz in order to report out to the world what was going on inside the camp. Pilecki organized an underground movement at Auschwitz and Birkenau and sent reports out to the Warsaw underground movement and to London in the hope of drawing in Western support to oust the Nazis and put an end to the atrocities he witnessed first-hand in the camp. What is also fascinating is how close this story came to never being told as Witold's reports and papers were silenced during the Iron Curtain era until 1989 when communism collapsed in Poland (the first story about Witold was not published until 2000 and the translation came even later). This book would also be a fantastic way to explore historical research and some of the conventions of NF as the book has extensive end notes, a glossary of people and abbreviations, maps, photographs, documents, and a bibliography. Some of the content would be pretty heavy for younger MG readers. Highly recommended.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine volunteering to go inside Auschwitz, to collect evidence for your country’s underground resistance. That’s exactly what Witold Pilecki did, yet despite his monumental accomplishments, upon his death in 1948, he considered himself a “failure” because his information did not garner the attention he had hoped for first by British, and then American authorities. Not only did he volunteer to go inside, he escaped! During its existence, something like only a dozen people successfully escaped Auschwitz.

I hesitate to say a book about the Holocaust is “good”. The fact that it happened - there’s nothing good about it. But it is a fascinating read about a topic that needs to be discussed. I believe I have read about this man before, but this was a very close look at what happened inside Auschwitz.

[Lorelai Teal (I’M BACK) · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF at page 60.

I got this book at a book fair a few years ago, and it’s been collecting dust on my shelf. I decided to bring it for a long car trip, and could not bring myself to finish it.

I don’t want to rate this book. I somewhat enjoyed the plot, and it was just entertaining enough to keep me reading. However, to have been picked up at a Scholastic book fair- the detail of the gore and torture in Auschwitz surprised me. I have read more in-detail Holocaust novels before, but detailed descriptions of how people were flattened to death or peppered with bullets was not what I was expecting or wanting from this story.

In short, I was hoping for a book that went more into the espionage of Witold’s story rather than the harsh realities of living in Auschwitz.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for a Teachers as Readers group and I did not love it, but I'm not sure why. Part of my issue may be that while the book seems well researched, some of the details seem far fetched and I did not find Witold Pilecki to be likable even though he did heroic things. It was hard to root for him.

I will say that as a middle school teacher, this book is not appropriate for 6th grade, and 7th grade is a stretch. While I know that the topic is hard for kids, some of the descriptions were graphic and not for younger audiences. The author describes the screams of panic of people being gassed, executions, and the murder of civilians-all of which is documented history, but I imagine difficult for younger audiences.

[Blythe Drilling · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was gifted this book and had no idea what to expect as the giver thought it might be interesting to me. It was hard for me to read it at first because of how dry it seemed and how very straight to the point, almost boring, the writing was. I finally realized how much was pulled from historical documents, Witold's writings and things like that. Knowing that helped adjust my expectations and allowed me to enjoy it more. It definitely opened my eyes to what else was going on during the war. I would definitely recommend this to young adults wanting to read more about Auschwitz and Poland.

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must say that this book is one of the most inspiring books I have ever read. The constant persistence and courage displayed by Witold Pilecki is something that I wish everyone would have. It takes a lot of bravery for someone to willingly turn themselves into the Nazis, go through a concentration camp, and do this to tell the world about what Auschwitz was like. It was heart-wrenching to learn that he was eventually shot by the Soviets after the war. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in reading WW2 resistance stories.

[Kailee Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Might? be my final book of 2024 (and I made my goal!!). My favorite genre/time-period to read about. Witold was one of the first to write about the atrocities of World War II. A quote from the book that I loved/gives a great picture of the themes:

“Most people don’t instinctively come to the rescue of others, especially when in danger or feeling threatened themselves. Witold reminds us, no matter how gruesome the subject, no matter how difficult our own circumstances, we must never stop trying to understand the plight of others.”

[Harrison Greene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great read that goes deep into the view of a prisoner of war in Auschwitz. I thought this was a great story highlighting Witold Pilecki and his hard life during World War II. It's one of those amazing stories they don't tell you in school that is worth knowing. It tells you how it is and doesn't sugarcoat the horrors of Auschwitz. I would give it another read because the book is written well and a great story of a horrible time in history.