The Incredible True Story of the Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz During World War II

p boardman: Although this book was not a literary masterpiece, I thought that it was an amazingly honest account of the lives of some very brave men. It was a ver moving account and I’m so glad that the writing of this book has helped to heal him.

United Kingdom on Jul 02, 2023

KaylaKayla: I anticipated this book to be eye-opening and emotionally triggering with a story of a man describing his experiences centered around Auschwitz…. What this book actually is is Dennis Aveys life as a soldier, with only a few chapters in the middle of the book describing his experience of the holocaust. It is still a good book, I just feel like the title is very misleading. I did learn a lot about what life was like during the war for a soldier but the first eight chapters were honestly slow and ‘less than engaging’ for me. I had to really push through the first half of the book… In full transparency, I also struggled a bit with the author.. while I am sure he is a very honorable and respectful man, I couldn’t help but feel he was a bit arrogant as there are several instances where he speaks extremely highly of himself. I appreciate his self-confidence and I mean this with kindness and respect… But perhaps some of his stories could’ve been written in a less egotistical way? Just my own two cents… I’m still happy I read the book. I’m including a couple photos of some sample pages as well just to offer a closer look at what to expect. I hope that helps!

United States on Jul 22, 2022

Amazon Customer yes.: I injoy non fictional books of history. This one was unexpected. WWII has always been my favorite. The details are re mark able and must never be lost to our society. The future must no forget what happened in these camps God bless the men for keeping their experiences alive for future generations.

United States on Jan 09, 2022

LynseyLynsey: This book is about Denis Avey who deliberately swapped places with a Jewish prisoner so he could witness the full extent of cruelty at the other camps, while completely disregarding his own safety of being a POW.

After 60 years, some of the memories may be skewed slightly. Having studied a bit of psychology, I know that this can easily happen, especially with survivors who then watch recreations of their experiences- ie war heroes who then watch war movies. So I had initially began the book with a slight hesitancy to believing that everything was the complete 100% truth, and it may have been . In saying that I was willing to give Denis the benefit of the doubt, and read his story with no prior judgement. I think it best to do the same if you are reading the book...

While reading, I was constantly eager to find out what happened next and how Denis managed to survive. Overall, there is more content that is not about Auschwitz than is, but it all gives a good impression of the writer, his experience and his character. The detail is sparse on the actual swap itself, but this is understandable- it happened so long ago and if you managed to get inside the camp, you...

United Kingdom on Feb 11, 2019

Bex: "People think it could never happen again and particularly that it could never happen here. Don't you believe it; it doesn't take much".

What an impressive man with an equally impressive story. Denis Avey shares his story of the war through his eyes and his firsthand encounters with two prisoners inside the walls of Auschwitz III Monowitz.

A British soldier, but a prisoner of war no less, Denis finds himself working inside the camp, and watching the awful extermination, beatings and unimaginable cruelty of which he retells in this book. Some of the scenes within, one in particular, are utterly barbaric. This book however is not what I initially imagined it would be - I expected a retelling of how Denis manages to swap places with a Jewish prisoner inside. In fact, the first half of this book focuses more on Denis as a soldier in the desert prior to finding himself in Auschwitz III and how he eventually came to get to the camp with other soldiers. The subterfuge of the swap only features in a very small portion of the book overall.

What I liked about this was the completeness of it. I feel I know Denis Avey's war as well as he would want me, as a reader, to...

United Kingdom on Feb 28, 2018

James: A heartwarming conclusion to what is an interesting story from the outset. A unique insight into how one young lad's journey of singing up to fight for his country for the sheer heck of it spanned all the way, through twists and turns, to Auschwitz and slightly beyond when the Red Army was advancing upon Germany in the final days of the war.

While the title of the book may lead you to think a number of things and one of them being that a man broke into and stayed in Auschwitz it was only on a couple of occasions that he did so. However, in doing so, it allowed Denis, years latter, to put his experience into print and provide an insight into an horrific period of time through the eyes of someone who wasn't directly at the hands of the SS's suffering. As Denis goes on to recall from his occasions inside the camp it was a monopoly of life and a harrowing experience that stayed with him, threw what he saw, for decades to come.

I would pre-warn that the story starts out through Denis's army life and that only much latter on did I realise how this formed part of the wider story when it transitioned to first mention German captors and in an instant I realised the direction...

United Kingdom on Feb 01, 2017

Roger Ryan: Having met the author over lunch in the prestigious setting of the Locarno Suite in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in honour of the British Heroes of the Holocaust in March 2010 and visited Denis Avey at home, this is the book this reviewer was looking forward to reading.

The Man who Broke into Auschwitz is an honest account by a gentleman in his 90s in which he recalls his experiences as a young man of the brutality of war in the North African desert and as a POW in Italy and Poland. Denis presents the reader with an account of his training in The Rifles which is sometimes amusing and often grizzly. On a troopship he has no idea that he would engage in desert warfare. He kills the enemy with his bare hands, mercy-kills another, witnesses the death of his friends and is lucky to avoid being killed in air raids. When he is wounded and captured, Denis does not accept that his war is over. He survives shipwreck; attempts `a home run'; is recaptured by the Italians and when handed over to the Germans finds himself in an Auschwitz working camp called E715 next to IG Farben's factory and Monowitz-Buna, a camp with `slow-moving figures... dressed in tattered ill-fitting...

United Kingdom on Jul 06, 2013

Southern Man: The title stole my attention and the book was quite difficult to put down at times, particularly as it got into the nitty gritty of Denis Avey's time as a POW right next to the the Jewish labour/death camp. The volume of lead in to this story, including Mr Avey's early war experiences, was unexpected but very interesting. It was worthwhile reading. The difficulties he experienced once back in civilian life were facinating and provides valuable insight into the human psyche as it relates to the suffering of others - people either didn't believe or didn't want to know. The end of the book contrasted the sensitivity of the old man with the tough 'take no prisoners approach of his younger years and explains wonderfully Mr Avey's search for peace and absolution before the end of his life. The writing style creates tension in some parts but could have been better in others. Still, it did the trick and was never boring. Mr Avey's deliberate actions in witnessing first hand the revulsion of the Nazis' treatment of the Jews sets him apart and his late recognition cements a place for him in history as an unusual hero of WWII. That no one or no thing, including the War Crimes Trubunal,...

United States on Nov 21, 2012

Sheila H. Mclaren: This remarkable work is the story of Denis Avey who served as a British soldier in WWII in the Western Desert of North Africa, was captured, escaped, walked through Greece and much of Italy, was captured again, escaped again - and finally wound up as a POW of the Germans at Auschwitz III, or Buna-Monowitz as it was also known. Mr Avey was assisted by Rob Broomby in writing the book, and Avey freely admits that Mr Broomby kept him under control - he loves telling his story, in every little detail!

Denis Avey is in his 90s now. With the assistance of his fine memory, Rob Broomby, various researchers, archives and editors, his story comes alive. We go with the young man through his happy youth in England, army training in Liverpool, travel by ship - with constant fear of German submarines - to Egypt, and then follow him through a ghastly period in the Western Desert. I had never quite understood the battle plans of that time, but thanks to Denis Avey I have a good understanding now. First the Allies battled against the Italians, and this was a doddle compared to the eventual war against the highly organized Germans. Avey saw friends killed, was ultimately wounded himself, and...

United States on Sep 28, 2011

Thriller Junkie: If you research or are just interested in the holocaust histories then you will want this book. This is written from the totally different view point of a captured British POW. Though not housed in the wretched barracks of the main death camp area of Auschwitz the POW's didn't fair a whole lot better. We all know what happened at these death camps so I won't belabor that. You'll want this book for the front and back stories. Without throwing out a spoiler, it's amazing how something as simple as a pack of cigarettes could make such a huge difference. Brush up on your British slang as this book isn't Americanized. Took me a bit to figure out what was said at times but it in no way detracted from the book. This is a book I will re-read again and again. If Amazon had a 10 star rating system this one would get all 10.

United States on Jun 30, 2011