Denis Avey

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'Denis Avey (born 1919) fought in the desert during the Second World War and was captured and held as a prisoner of war for two years near Auschwitz III, a concentration camp. During his imprisonment, he says that he exchanged uniforms with a Jewish prisoner and smuggled himself into Auschwitz to witness conditions first hand. In 2010 he received a British Hero of the Holocaust award, and he has written of his accounts, with Rob Broomby, in his book, The Man who Broke into Auschwitz, published in 2011.

Early years and military service

Avey was born in Essex, outside of London, in 1919. As a boy he learned boxing, was head boy at school and studied at Leyton technical college. He joined the army in 1939 at the age of 20, and fought in the desert campaigns of North Africa in the 7th Armoured Division, known as the "Desert Rats". During these battles, while he engaged in combat against German forces, he had slept in the sand and battled malaria. Avey was then captured by the Germans while attacking Rommel’s forces near Tobruk, Libya, and saw his best friend killed next to him. He escaped to Greece by crossing the Mediterranean Sea floating on top of a packing crate, but was recaptured after landing.

After being retaken prisoner, he was moved to a POW labor camp for British soldiers near Auschwitz III, a German concentration camp, where he was kept imprisoned from 1943 until April, 1945. During his time in the camp he managed to befriend a Jewish inmate of Auschwitz III, Ernest Lobethal. He obtained cigarettes from Ernst’s sister in Britain, which he secretly passed to Ernst. Avey says that on two separate occasion while at Auschwitz, he exchanged uniforms with another Jewish prisoner, with the help of Lobethall, and smuggled himself into Auschwitz in order to witness first hand, conditions inside the prison, with a view to testifying after the war. Avey explains:

I knew I had to bear witness. As Albert Einstein said: the world can be an evil place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. I’ve never been one to do nothing.”

When POWs were evacuated from the camp near the end of the war Avey escaped and made his way back to England. He says that he encountered indifference from his commanding officer when he tried to report his experience in Auschwitz III and that when prosecutors sought his testimony for post war trials they were unable to trace him.

After the war he married twice and pursued a career in engineering, which culminated in him building a factory near Newcastle. After retirement he became active amongst ex-POWs seeking compensation for wartime experiences

Autobiographical book

Avey describes the events in detail in his book, The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz (2011). Agent for the book Jane Turnbull stated "Denis' war reminds me of Andy McNab's novels it was so full of action and impossible escapes from death....I would be amazed if this story didn't end up on the screen." The book has been published in 14 countries as of May, 2011.

He first began disclosing these events seven years ago when invited to appear on the BBC to talk about war pensions. "The memories suddenly started tumbling out, and the TV hosts could scarcely believe the extraordinary tale they were hearing. Avey states that "Auschwitz III was like nothing else on earth; it was hell on earth. This is what I had come to witness, but it was a ghastly, terrifying experience.” According to Avey's account, "my life depended on 50 cigarettes - 25 in, 25 out. He (the guard) could have shot me easily." His motivation for getting inside the camp was to "put one over on the enemy," and witness the slaughter so that he could tell the world afterwards. As a result, the BBC began production of a documentary about his heroic story, and also discovered the name of the young Jewish prisoner Avey had befriended in Auschwitz, Ernst Lobethal."

Detailing his "break in"

He explains that by exchanging his uniform for the clothing of a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz, he managed to smuggle himself into the concentration camp in order to document the events there:

". . . the then-25-year-old pondered and plotted, soon hatching a plan so audacious that, more than 65 years later, he shakes his head at its absurdity. While so many Jews and others held at the infamous extermination camp were desperate to get out, Avey was actually devising a way to sneak in. . . . 'I shaved my hair completely off,' he recalled. 'And before that, I dirtied my face and my eyes. He also carefully studied and copied "the slouch," the defeated bearing of many of the Jewish prisoners, who were starved of both food and hope.'"

Avey realized at the time that he was risking his life with this audacious scheme:

"With that simple exchange between the two of us I had given away the protection of the Geneva Convention: I'd given my uniform, my lifeline, my best chance of surviving that dreadful place, to another man. . . If I was caught, the guards would have shot me out of hand as an imposter. No question at all." "We worked alongside the striped Jews and we weren’t allowed to speak to them. If you spoke to them, the bullet."

Avey traded places twice and slept overnight in Auschwitz. He tried a third time but he was almost caught and the plan was aborted. He also made his own estimates of the deaths during his period in prison, which he described at a lecture:

"I am telling you I know without exaggeration, nearly 200,000 prisoners in Auschwitz were worked to death. Not killed. Were worked to death and they claimed total innocence. They lived for no more than 4 months. They were clubbed and beaten every day without any justification whatsoever."

Avey escaped during the "death marches" in April, 1945, which followed the Nazis' evacuation of Auschwitz. Although suffering from tuberculosis, he "saw a chance to escape and seized it, he states.” Avey also estimates that around 15,000 prisoners died on the way. “The road was littered with corpses.” He eventually ran into Americans who helped get him back to England and his family, who thought he was dead.

After being hospitalised for two years after the war, in 1947 he went to his military authorities to give them his first hand account of what he saw taking place at Auschwitz. "Their eyes glazed over," he states "I wasn’t taken seriously. I was shocked, especially after the risks I’d taken. I felt completely disillusioned, and traumatized as well. So from then on I bottled it up, and tried to piece my life back together.”

Subsequent years

As a result of the indifference to his breaking into Auschwitz, Avey kept the traumatic events about his wartime past a complete secret from everyone, including his mother, his present wife, and also his step-daughter. Avey explains:

"The sad irony was that I went in there to find out the truth, so I could tell everybody about the horrors of the Nazi regime. But I was so traumatised at my whole experience of the Auschwitz camps it took me 60 years to be able to recount the horrors I saw."

"I knew there was something," said his wife, Audrey. "Naturally, you ask questions. But I never got an answer." Avey also suffered from symptoms after the war: "I had nightmares for years. I still think of Auschwitz every day. I can’t exorcise this. My bed was soaked from sweat for years. I went to doctors, they couldn’t help." He suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when he came back from the war and has only recently been able to speak about what he did and what he saw. He admits some may find it hard to believe and acknowledges it was "foolhardy".

Before he died, Ernst Lobethall recorded his survival story on video for the Shoah Foundation, which video the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses. In it he spoke of his friendship with a British soldier in Auschwitz who he simply called "Ginger". "It was Denis," notes BBC writer Rob Broomby. Avey also notes that the prisoner he helped to survive by providing him with cigarettes, the 'currency' of the camps, Ernst likewise refused to burden anyone with his own suffering and never talked about Auschwitz until very late in life. But Avey adds:

"I, too, have left it late. I will always regret not tracking Ernst down while he was alive. If I’d known he was living in America, I would have gone and found him, without doubt. But I am proud to have played a small part in helping one man through the obscenity of Auschwitz."

Recognition

From 2000 onwards he began to share details of his experiences in Auschwitz, with Colin Rushton, BBC local radio, the Imperial War Museum and Diarmuid Jeffries. In 2009 author Rob Broomby and Patrick Howse of the BBC demonstrated that by supplying cigarettes to Ernst Lobethal Avey had saved his life - Lobethal has used the cigarettes as currency to have his boots re-soled, which enabled him to survive the death march when Auschwitz III was evacuated.

Regarding his helping of Ernst Lobethal, a spokesman for the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation states, "We feel that his story is genuine," noting that a fellow survivor corroborated his account to the foundation's satisfaction. Lobethal himself was interviewed as part of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education and spoke about the efforts of a British prisoner of war he called "Ginger" to help him; Avey identifies himself as "Ginger". The BBC filmed an emotional reunion between Avey and Ernst's sister, Susanna. The two had met soon after the war at a time when they both thought Ernst was dead. In 2010, Avey was named a British Hero of the Holocaust by the British Governnment.

Reactions and questions

Reaction from the mainstream media to his story 2009 and 2010 were positive. However after publication of the book questions were raised over his account of having entered Auschwitz III and his reasons for keeping silent for so long One historian states that Avey's story was problematic partly because it was impossible to prove or disprove. "Theoretically it is possible to do such a thing, but for practical reasons it would be extremely difficult," he said. The World Jewish Congress has asked his publishers to verify the historical accuracy of the book. Avey has since suggested that those who consider his story too fantastic to be true may have "ein böses Herz" - "a bad (or evil) heart"

See also

• Arthur Dodd (Auschwitz survivor)
• Charles Coward
• Monowitz concentration camp

External links

• Video: Avey discussing his new book, BBC, April 26, 2011, 4.5 minutes
• Video: Interview with Denis Avey, with Rob Broomby, 4 minutes
• British P.O.W. Tells Oxford Students of Auschwitz Horrors
• Auschwitz hero Denis Avey in line for Israeli honour
• British POW Denis Avey, ‘Why I smuggled myself into Auschwitz’ - Lecture