The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather

Author : Jack Fairweather
Title : The Volunteer
published : 2019
Publisher : WH Allen
Pages : 528
Genre : Biography

     How do you keep fighting in the face of unimaginable horror? This is the untold story of one of the greatest heroes of the Second World War. In the Summer of 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Poland, an underground operative called Witold Pilecki accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands of people being interred at a new concentration camp on the border of the Reich. His mission was to report on Nazi crimes and raise a secret army to stage an uprising. The name of the detention center: Auschwitz. It was only after arriving at the camp that he started to discover the Nazi's terrifying designs. Over the next two and half years, Witold forged an underground army that smuggled evidence of Nazi atrocities out of Auschwitz. His reports from the camp were to shape the Allies response to the Holocaust - yet his story was all but forgotten for decades.

     For some people simply sitting by the sidelines and watching as things unfold is not in their blood. For some the are compelled to act no matter the personal danger involved. These men and women are all to often forgotten by history. Their actions may save a few or thousands of lives but for some reason, we all too often never know their names. So it is for the thanks of books like The volunteer that not only do we get to learn their names but find out the brave actions they took. When I saw this on the shelf at the book store I knew I would have to pick it up. I was aware that someone had chosen to be sent to Auschwitz in the hopes of getting the story out to the rest of the world. But this is where my knowledge ended. 

     Pilecki could have easily kept his head down in the hopes that the carnage being done to his country would pass him by. But for this man that was never going to be an option. When reading this book I often wondered what it takes in our upbringing to make such a decision.  Especially when you have a family to think about. But maybe that is the point, such people do these things because they have people they care about. It is with the thought of others that time and again you look death in the face and say just once more. If I can bear this then I can keep going in the hopes of finding a better world for them to live in. I was left astounded, even with everything I knew about this place that one more could keep going even with a way out. It is the sacrifice that others make to help us all. I could not help but wonder, would I do the same in his shoes. Could I in fact, endure such abuse and torment to help people who're names I would never learn and thanks would never come. Am I, in fact, that selfless. Could I, would I. 

     This book contained a great deal of information that I had never read about before. And In learning such facts I could not help be become infuriated. The atrocities that took place in this place that must have been the closets to hell on earth where known. In fact, many of the allied governments knew long before the mass genocide started that things were getting worse. It is in the minds of these powerful men that their lives hung in the balance. But even after learning such things they choose to do nothing.  In the hopes of pushing the great evil, they used it as a way to promote the war and have much greater use in propaganda. For them, it was easier to talk about the horrors being done without actually naming them.  Is this in fact how governments sell a war to the greater public? I, of course, look back on this in hindsight. Does this make their actions more or less damaging? But here within the pages, the author does his best to give a little of both sides. What he delvers is a story that moved me in a great way. That even in the darkest of hours people will find hope and light. That when the coming tide seems insurmountable some will stand in its way in an attempt to hold back what is to come.  

     The life of Witold Pilecki is one I think should be taught in all schools when they are learning about what took place in Poland during world war two. He stands out as a beacon of hope and daring. For my part when at school we were only told of the destruction of this country and its people. But here we get to see that the human spirit burn at it's brightest. He is an example of all that is good in the human soul.