Thought this was better in here - A man who snuck INTO Auschwitz

H Wally

H Wally

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Super GunNutz
Rating - 100%
193   0   0
Location
Canada/New Zealand
Figured people here would appreciate it more than in the other areas, mods feel free to move it if there's a better spot.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8382457.stm

The man who smuggled himself into Auschwitz

More than a million people died in Auschwitz

By Rob Broomby
BBC News


When millions would have done anything to get out, one remarkable British soldier smuggled himself into Auschwitz to witness the horror so he could tell others the truth.
Denis Avey is a remarkable man by any measure. A courageous and determined soldier in World War II, he was captured by the Germans and imprisoned in a camp connected to the Germans' largest concentration camp, Auschwitz.

But his actions while in the camp - which he has never spoken about until now - are truly extraordinary. When millions would have done anything to get out, Mr Avey repeatedly smuggled himself into the camp.

Denis Avey: "They knew they'd only last five months"
Now 91 and living in Derbyshire, he says he wanted to witness what was going on inside and find out the truth about the gas chambers, so he could tell others. He knows he took "a hell of a chance".

"When you think about it in today's environment it is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous," he says.

"You wouldn't think anyone would think or do that, but that is how I was. I had red hair and a temperament to match. Nothing would stop me."

He arranged to swap for one night at a time with a Jewish inmate he had come to trust. He exchanged his uniform for the filthy, stripy garments the man had to wear. For the Auschwitz inmate it meant valuable food and rest in the British camp, while for Denis it was a chance to gather facts on the inside.

Evil

He describes Auschwitz as "hell on earth" and says he would lie awake at night listening to the ramblings and screams of prisoners.

"It was pretty ghastly at night, you got this terrible stench," he says.

He talked to Jewish prisoners but says they rarely spoke of their previous life, instead they were focused on the hell they were living and the work they were forced to do in factories outside the camp.

FIND OUT MORE...
Listen to Denis Avey's story on BBC News 24 throughout Sunday and on Broadcasting House, BBC Radio 4 at 0900 GMT.
Or listen to it here later
"There were nearly three million human beings worked to death in different factories," says Mr Avey. "They knew at that rate they'd last about five months.

"They very seldom talk about their civil life. They only talked about the situation, the punishments they were getting, the work they were made to do."

He says he would ask where people he'd met previously had gone and he would be told they'd "gone up the chimney".

"It was so impersonal. Auschwitz was evil, everything about it was wrong."

He also witnessed the brutality meted out to the prisoners, saying people were shot daily. He was determined to help, especially when he met Jewish prisoner Ernst Lobethall.

'Bloody marvellous'

Mr Lobethall told him he had a sister Susana who had escaped to England as a child, on the eve of war. Back in his own camp, Mr Avey contacted her via a coded letter to his mother.

He arranged for cigarettes, chocolate and a letter from Susana to be sent to him and smuggled them to his friend. Cigarettes were more valuable than gold in the camp and he hoped he would be able to trade them for favours to ease his plight - and he was right.

AdvertisementAuschwitz prisoner's sister meets man who helped save him
Mr Lobethall traded two packs of Players cigarettes in return for getting his shoes resoled. It helped save his life when thousands perished or were murdered on the notorious death marches out of the camps in winter in 1945.

Mr Avey briefly met Susana Lobethall in 1945, when he came home from the war. He was fresh from the camp and was traumatised by what he'd witnessed and endured.

At the time both of them thought Ernst was dead. He'd actually survived, thanks - in part - to the smuggled cigarettes. But she lost touch with Mr Avey and was never able to tell him the good news.

The BBC has now reunited the pair after tracing Susana, who is now Susana Timms and lives in the Midlands. Mr Avey was told his friend moved to America after the war, where he had children and lived a long and happy life. The old soldier says the news is "bloody marvellous".

'Ginger'

Sadly, the emotional reunion came too late for Ernst - later Ernie - who died never even knowing the real name of the soldier who he says helped him survive Auschwitz.

But before he died Mr 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.


Ernest Lobethall moved to the US
He also recalled how the cigarettes, chocolate and a letter from his sister in England were smuggled to him in the midst of war.

"It was like being given the Rockefeller Centre," he says in the video.

Mr 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 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".

"But that is how I was," he simply says.
Click to expand...
 
Don’t ever forget…only 70 years ago……….
They all said it could never happen…………

There is allot we have to remember when the accusations of mistreatment with the tailiban or Afghans. What is accused vs proved..

What would the liberals or NDP say now on WWII…

Just remember & think.
 
TOScout said:
That guy is possibly the bravest person I have ever heard of.
Click to expand...
X1000. No kidding. I was there twice, in 1962 and 1969. Under comunist system there was mandatory for school children to see that dreadfool place first hand. Of course nobody talked and show us the Russian gulags then. I can share my horror experience in there (I was 10 & 17 years old back then) if anybody is interested.
 
"Arbeit Mact Frei"

I visited Auschwitz with some co-workers while on a construction project in 1994. It was cold and raining so there was next to no one else there - we had our guide to ourselves and she walked us through the entire place. It was one of the most incredibly subduing experiences of my entire life. Until you are there you can't appreciate the scale of the thing both physically and in Human terms.

We all found ourselves more than a little "impatient" with our German hosts and fellow workers after that tour. Union gripes about missed coffee breaks and extended lunches left me wanting to slap somebody.
 
Last edited:
I read a book about this many years ago. There was also a film. I think that the name must have been changed at the request of Denis Avey. The Sergant in the movie and book had a different name.
 
Haven't had the priviledge of having been on site.

However, I am absolutely gobshot at the pictures I have observed...the RRX tracks in front of the arched entranceway..."Arbeit Mach Frei" thereon emblazoned.

In 2002, in North Carolina, I walked through the Holocaust Museum. I hosted a couple of Germans. Upon asking them if they wished to view this site, one of them said "We've been living with this since we were born, let's go see what our forefathers did to us". (Or words to that effect).

Never have I been in such a public exposition where sound simply did not carry. The silence was over powering. After exiting, the Germans were visibly shaken.

One girl, Mailaika, from Cleve, said..."This cannot be true; I can't believe it."

We were silent on the bus ride to our hotel.
 
And the Muslim have the NERVE to say it didn't happen!
There was a very good reason Eisenhower ordered pictures taken. He said in the future people would say it couldn't have happened so take plenty of pics.

Now it wasn't only the jews, but also five million gypsies, union members,priests, and anyone else the nazi's didn't like.

As Pastor Niemoller said
When they came for the trade unionists I didn't protest because I was not a trade unionist
When they came for the jews I didn't protest because i was not a jew.
When they came for the catholics I did not protest because I was not a catholic
When they came for me, there was no one left to protest.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
H Wally said:
I'd be interested in hearing about it from someone who has been there, definitely.
Click to expand...
Well, this death concentration camp was composed mainly from 2 parts; Auschwitz and Birkenau run by Germans (SS H. Himler's pet project) from June 1940 to January 1945. Place was chosen becouse there is very good railway network and lots of potential victims all around, you see, transportation costs needed to be minimal. Auschwitz was the smaller one, Birkenau the bigger, couple of klics from the first one. The first you see, entering the museum now is solid steel gate, with sign "Arbait Macht Frei" which means; work will free You. This place was masive, thousands of acres and then some. All death camp was fenced with double row concrete posts with barb wires under electric currents, mine fields, guard towers, regular German soldiers patrols, etc. Main "procesing" of victims was in Birkenau, whole train transport mainly of Jews, Poles, Roma, Russians and dozens of other nationals, was segregated by German officers into 2 categories; those who didn't make it in very cold or hot temperatures ( no wonder; 50-80 persons in cattle wagon without food or water) and very old, frail, children, sick ones etc ( about 80%) were disposed right away in gas chambers and crematorium. Rest; ( about 20%) young, strong, with skills, were "given" chance to work for 111 Reich, usually lasting 2 to 6 months, dying mostly from malnutrition, hard labour, disease, fireing squad, medical experiments, torture, heavy beatings, "fun killings" etc. Gas chamber I saw was a superior German engineering; heavy concrete bunker with water sprinklers look alike inside, 200 to 300 naked people were pushed inside if nessesary under the pretext of desinfection and cleaning, then gas Ziclon B ( about 4lbs steel can of white granules made by I.G.Farben-still in bussines) was droped into shower piping from roof. Death wasn't quick, 10 to 15 minutes. Everything was utilised, I saw mountains and mountains of glases, human hair, shoes, handbags, artificial limbs, soaps made of bones and fat, clothing, toys, strolers, bibles and other books, fancy tatooed human skin as lamp covers.... oh God. I feel like having a drink or two. 40 years passed and I feel like it was yesterday. Anyway, all of the butchering tools were there, torture chambers, cold water experiments section, "Dr" Mengele "Hospital", and gallow which last Auschwitz comendante was hanged from after US deported him to Poland. Cramatoriums had a hard time to burn all the bodies, so some of them were disposed of in trenches, treated with lime. Ashes were disposed in fields as fertiliser. Number of victims there can only be estimated, about 2,5 to 3 milion+. If anybody has any more inquires, I can answer them to the best of my ability, but not today. Sorry for my spelling, English is not my mother language, not even the second.
 
My oncle spend the last six months of WW2 in a german concentration camp. Beacuse of he also was an army officer, he was requested to stay at his concentration camp after the liberation, in order to "take care" and process german colaborators from his country, that now was being sent to his former concentration camp. Sweet...
 
Pblatzz said:
Don’t ever forget…only 70 years ago……….
They all said it could never happen…………

There is allot we have to remember when the accusations of mistreatment with the tailiban or Afghans. What is accused vs proved..

What would the liberals or NDP say now on WWII…

Just remember & think.
Click to expand...

Don't forget that the Liberals were in for all of WWII.
 
It is really important to hear about all the horrible things that happened. It isn't pleasant to hear, it is quite disturbing but important.
Those that deny anything happened are no better than the people that did these things.
 
snowhunter said:
My oncle spend the last six months of WW2 in a german concentration camp. Beacuse of he also was an army officer, he was requested to stay at his concentration camp after the liberation, in order to "take care" and process german colaborators from his country, that now was being sent to his former concentration camp. Sweet...
Click to expand...

My great uncle had the same thing happen to him, he was put in Dachau. He wasn't Jewish or anything. Everyone in my family thought he was dead, because the Germans never reported him as a POW. So he was listed as MIA. I heard he was captured whilst being behind enemy lines by the SS. I wonder how many Canadian soldiers were put in concentration camps?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom