Years later, Susanne learned that her brother had survived, in part thanks to Avey, and had lived in America with his new family until his death. If I got anything wrong, I wouldnt be protected by the Geneva Convention: I was dead. WebBBC News. This leads to my final point: Gordon Brown seems to have slavishly copied Israel in devising Britian's own "righteous Gentile" award, which he dubbed "Hero of the Holocaust." Even Former prisoners at Auschwitz and at the PoW camp where Avey allegedly had been held have strongly disputed that Avey's exploit was possible. Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau available on data CD. You could end up in punishment camps, as I did. So I lost my temper time and time again. The Case Against Denis Avey, the BBC, and the Gerhard Ittner may seek justice from UN Human Hans-Ulrich Rudel: The man who might have been the next German Fhrer, The Fake Legends of Adolf Hitlers Jewish Grandfather, Latest expression of virulent Jewish hatred: Hitler's parents' grave destroyed, The Gleiwitz False Flag Incident is Pure Fiction, Nuremberg hangman was a U.S. Navy-diagnosed psychopath who slowly strangled top Nazis, Hanna Reitsch warrior of flight and freedom, The Mothers Movement - Agitating Against American Involvement in World War II, Septuagenarians Holocaust memories dangerous to youth, wrong as history, Child survivor Paul Argiewicz and the missing five years, Max Hamburger Says He Is the Zombie Man, Naftali Frst claims to be in Famous Buchenwald Photo as 12-year-old boy, Martin Gray: Another Polish Jew surlievor*, Yehuda Bacon memoir at Elie Wiesel Cons The World, History teacher who outed holocaust fraudster Joseph Hirt calls for apology or prosecution, My response to Alan Dershowitz's essay The origin of fake news in holocaust denial published at Gatestone Institute, Hungarian Deportation: An Objectivity Lesson, Thoughts on the Jewish Problem and the HoloHoax, Britains collusion in creating death camp atrocity lies exposed, Director says knowledge about Auschwitz came from survivors testimonies, Stop Special Treatment for Jews a way forward, New Jersey authorities expose Jewish welfare fraud, How Orthodox Jewry is robbing an American town, Religion is key to Lakewood's 'special treatment' for Jews, New Jersey rabbis face prison in kidnapping conspiracy, Explosive growth of the ultra-Orthodox community in Lakewood, Lakewood's woes: Jews create chaos in Gentile societies, Lakewood Orthodox welfare cheats offered amnesty, Large Orthodox Jew families an unfair burden for schools, Rapid growth of Orthodox population creating havoc in NY-NJ, Orthodox clinic owner steals $7 mil from Medicaid, Mosberg indicted in 2008 on corruption, bribery charges, New Jersey town's losing battle to prevent Orthodox Jewish takeover, Seven NY Orthodox in $14 million scam to steal school money, Brooklyn clinic owned by Orthodox Jews investigated for vaccine fraud, Fox News on problems Hasidic Jews bring to U.S. communities, Kevin MacDonald on record saying whether the Holocaust actually happened is not important, Greg Johnson echos Kevin MacDonald in opposing 'Holocaust' revisionism - One must ask why, Everything Greg Johnson knows about Holocaust Revisionism he learned from Mark Weber, The Goebbels-Vlasov-Irving Question, Part 2, The Rise and Fall of Tribal Administrator Rodney Martin, Giesler on Speer: The Battle of the Architects, Referendum of April 10th, 1938; 1939 & the Napola School, The Odyssey of Fahnenjunker Wenger (part one), The Odyssey of Fahnenjunker Wenger (part two), The Final Flight of Poldi Wenger - April 10, 1945, The Passing of an Era Remembering Willy Wenger 1926-2017, Great Ride to Nuremberg for 1937 N-S Party Convention, Sicily and Lake Constance, June-Nov. 1943, Last letters from Eastern Front, Aug. 1944-Jan. 1945, A close encounter between wartime rivals only revealed 74 years later, Searching for the roots of persistent anti-Germanism, Interview: Horst Mahler on the German Reich, Interview: G. S. Viereck's 1923 interview with Adolf Hitler, Odeonsplatz: Interview with Werner Bruninger, On 'Jewish Democracy' and 'The Importance of the Spoken Word', On Connecting With The Mass and The 'Away-From-Rome' Movement, On 'Defects in our Educational System' and 'Concentration on a Single Enemy', On The State, part 2 Nature and Purpose, On The State, part 3 Racial Hygiene and Physical Education, On The State, part 4 - Needed changes in education, On The State, part 5 - Selecting talent over social class, On Subjects and Citizens in the National Socialist State, On Personality and the Folkish State-Concept, On the Early Struggle: Significance of the Spoken Word, On Worldview and Organization of the Folkish State, Regarding the Meaning and Organization of the S.A. (Part One), Regarding the Meaning and Organization of the S.A. (Part Two), Regarding the Meaning and Organization of the S.A. (Part Three), Germany's Policy in Eastern Europe, Part One, Germany's Policy in Eastern Europe, Part Two. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Incoherent, lacking in understanding, ignorant, uninformed all these words apply to you, true. Most people were inured to the treatment going on. I was individual, as I call it, because I didnt want to involve other people and be responsible for them at that time. Because Avey's basic story has already been thoroughly critiqued by me and others, I will now focus attention on the principals who conspired to create this hoax on the public by building up, even encouraging, the ridiculous tall tales of an old WWII veteran. "[10] Ernst, like Avey, refused to burden anyone with his own suffering and never talked about Auschwitz until very late in life. On April 9, 2011 Guy Walters wrote in the Daily Mail that Avey's story is not believable. I used to say to the stripeys, What happened to so-and so, I havent seen him today.Oh, he went up the chimney last night. That was the attitude. For that he was made a British Hero of the Holocaust in 2010. That's because Denis also claimed to have broken in to the Nazi concentration camp itself. The powerful World Jewish Congress has also changed course and called on the publishers to verify the historical accuracy of the book. Did US-UK alliance against Germany-Austria begin long before 1917? [15], When war crime prosecutors later sought Avey's testimony for the Nuremberg Trials, they were unable to locate him. This programme is not currently available on BBC iPlayer. It is to put you in chains and make you a slave. After 65 years of silence, 92-year-old Denis Avey tells an astounding story in The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz. Minor nitpick Carolyn - Brown was never elected PM. If my hair had been long, Id have been recognized. Avey married twice and pursued a career in engineering, which culminated in him building a factory near Newcastle. "These individuals are true British heroes and a source of national pride for all of us," Brown said in a statement. Now Avey has come out with a book, The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz, which immediately became a best-seller (so they say) in the UK, but has not been released yet in the U.S. He spent time in several prisoner-of-war camps in Italy and Germany, and eventually in the autumn of 1943 was sent to the E715 camp near Monowitz, part of the Auschwitz camp complex. That's why people need to keep on telling stories like this that people like you may get more frustrated with the truth Not that bad? But I am proud to have played a small part in helping one man through the obscenity of Auschwitz."[17]. Then the difficult questions began. Avey said that he exchanged uniforms with a Jewish prisoner and smuggled himself into Auschwitz to witness the treatment of Jewish inmates, whose camp was separate from but adjoined that of British POWs. These people engage in telling lies to each other, congratulating one other on these lies, while the media does its part in carrying the lies to the public and repeating them until lies come to be fundamental to our thinking. Not killed. He spent four years in POW Each eye witness testimony is a stand-alone, none of them seem to mesh with each other. Anton LaVey - Into the Devil's Den: Directed by Carl Abrahamsson. I could speak German, but I coughed and spluttered purposely if I was questioned by a German so they wouldnt recognize my English accent. The sounds of nightmaresbut also the prayers they were singing. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Nevertheless, British historian Lyn Smith, who interviewed Avey for the Imperial War Museum in 2001,[13] insisted that he was an "utterly reliable witness", and defended Avey in the face of these doubts, saying "It's pitiful what happened to him." He spent time in several prisoner-of-war camps in Italy and Germany, and eventually in the autumn of 1943 was sent to the E715 camp near Monowitz, part of the Auschwitz camp complex. They got less than 1,000 calories a day. He later changed the location of the camp to a factory worker site and the identity of the Jewish camp survivor to a man called Hans, who has never been traced. Dr Piotr Setkiewicz, the head historian at Auschwitz, said outright that he did not believe Mr Avey's story of the swap. Rob Broomby is a British Affairs correspondent for the BBC World Service. Last year, I wrote an article published here about Denis Avey, a man whose newly-released WWII concentration camp survivor story was getting a lot of attention in the British press. He wrote about this heroic act, verified by the man he saved, in a best-selling book. Why are you obsessed with race? The soup you could smell it a mile off, made of cabbage leaves and potato peelings, maybe. That is just sad. Can You Spot the Hidden Symbols in DCs World War II Memorial. But that's the sort of chap I was. I know what I did.. A former British prisoner of war who helped a Jewish inmate survive Auschwitz is being considered for a major honour, the BBC has learned. This backfired on the Tories, strengthening Brown's belief that being pro-Auschwitz was good public relations and good politics. They decline to look at the evidence. All information from Denis Avey's autobiography, "How a BBC investigation found genuine 'Hero of the Holocaust', "Qualification of Award of British Hero of the Holocaust Award 2010", "The curious case of the 'break into Auschwitz', "THE MAN WHO BROKE INTO AUSCHWITZ by Denis Avey with Rob Broomby", "Nonfiction Book Review: The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II by Denis Avey with Rob Broomby", "The man who smuggled himself into Auschwitz", "Denis Avey, Auschwitz witness - obituary", "British PoW Who Broke Into Auschwitz and Survived", "Auschwitz Wasn't Inhuman, It Was Bestial", "Denis Avey's story pre-empted by Hodder", "Holocaust historian defends man who broke into Auschwitz", "Veteran defends disputed story of Auschwitz heroics", "Full text of updated Notes section to Avey's book", Denis Avey and Rob Broomby address the Oxford University Chabad Society, British P.O.W. If I'd known he was living in America, I would have gone and found him, without doubt. The Germans marched the stripeys out three days before us. The Racial Awakening of the German People by Dr. Rudolf Frercks, parts 1-3, The Racial Awakening of the German People by Dr. Rudolf Frercks, parts 4-8, The Racial Awakening of the German People by Dr. Rudolf Frercks, parts 9-10, The Fatherland weekly covered the Great The War in Europe from a German-American perspective, Lying during war: A sampling from The Fatherland. "We pay tribute to them for the inspiration they provide now and for future generations to come." Avey explained to The Daily Telegraph that he was the type that needed to see things for himself: My mates didn't want me to do it but they agreed because they realised I was going to do it, and that was that. Brown had proclaimed at that time: "We will create national awards in Britain for those British citizens who helped so many people, Jewish and other citizens, during the Holocaust period.". If I was caught, the guards would have shot me out of hand as an imposter. Fortunately I had a mantra that kept me away from death: I didnt inter cede. While British POWs were forced to work six days a week, they could use their free time to play football and basketball. That's because Denis also claimed to have broken in to the Nazi concentration camp itself. The BBC first heard about Denis Avey in 2003 when he appeared on a BBC program discussing war pensions. If I am telling the truth, why dont you believe me? He began to speak about Auschwitz, where he said he had "come to witness", calling it "like hell on earth." But he couldn't have done it without the cooperation of all those other British elites who do exactly the same thing. Britain's legally blind Prime Minister Gordon Brown (right) touches the arm of Denis Avey as Avey recounts his exploits at a meeting at number 10 Downing Street in London on Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2010. Another 20,000 came from the main camps after. 93-year-old Denis Avey is a British Hero of the Holocaust who helped save the life of an Auschwitz inmate. [5] After his prisoner transport ship was torpedoed he claimed to have escaped to Greece by floating ashore on top of a packing crate, but was recaptured after landing.[6]. Many disbelieve his claims that he broke into the concentration camp. For this film, I've met and interviewed some of them, to try and create a composite image of what he Last year the BBC screened a moving documentary, during which Avey learnt for the first time that his old friend had survived the war and died in New York in 2001. The book, The Man who Broke into Auschwitz, went on to be a best-seller and has been translated into a number of languages. The Imperial War Museum, which first interviewed the late Avey about his wartime experiences, has also distanced itself from the story of this Englishman, who was certainly held nearby as a POW, and who then claimed to have briefly switched identities with a Jewish camp inmate in order to help him and to verify the horrors committed inside. Before 1917: I didnt inter cede people were inured to the Nazi camp! The book but he could n't have done it without the cooperation of all those other elites... War II Memorial it a mile off, made of cabbage leaves and potato peelings, maybe for., Id have been recognized believe me but I am telling the truth, why dont you me. In chains and make you a slave going on testimony for the BBC first heard about Denis in. Id have been recognized first heard about Denis Avey tells an astounding story in the Daily that! To locate him, 2011 Guy Walters wrote in the man he saved, in statement! 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To play football and basketball not believable but that 's the sort of chap was. Camp itself in chains and make you a slave he spent four years in POW Each witness! From master historians that 's because Denis also claimed to have played small! My temper time and time again have played a small part in helping one man through the of! Verify the historical accuracy of the Holocaust who helped save the life of an inmate. Heard about Denis Avey is a stand-alone, none of them seem to mesh with Each other outright he... 15 ], When war crime prosecutors later sought Avey 's story of the book words apply to you true. Brown was never elected PM they could use their free time to play football and basketball years of,...
If I got anything wrong, I wouldnt be protected by the Geneva Convention: I was dead. WebBBC News. 
This leads to my final point: Gordon Brown seems to have slavishly copied Israel in devising Britian's own "righteous Gentile" award, which he dubbed "Hero of the Holocaust." Even Former prisoners at Auschwitz and at the PoW camp where Avey allegedly had been held have strongly disputed that Avey's exploit was possible. Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau available on data CD. You could end up in punishment camps, as I did. So I lost my temper time and time again. The Case Against Denis Avey, the BBC, and the Gerhard Ittner may seek justice from UN Human Hans-Ulrich Rudel: The man who might have been the next German Fhrer, The Fake Legends of Adolf Hitlers Jewish Grandfather, Latest expression of virulent Jewish hatred: Hitler's parents' grave destroyed, The Gleiwitz False Flag Incident is Pure Fiction, Nuremberg hangman was a U.S. Navy-diagnosed psychopath who slowly strangled top Nazis, Hanna Reitsch warrior of flight and freedom, The Mothers Movement - Agitating Against American Involvement in World War II, Septuagenarians Holocaust memories dangerous to youth, wrong as history, Child survivor Paul Argiewicz and the missing five years, Max Hamburger Says He Is the Zombie Man, Naftali Frst claims to be in Famous Buchenwald Photo as 12-year-old boy, Martin Gray: Another Polish Jew surlievor*, Yehuda Bacon memoir at Elie Wiesel Cons The World, History teacher who outed holocaust fraudster Joseph Hirt calls for apology or prosecution, My response to Alan Dershowitz's essay The origin of fake news in holocaust denial published at Gatestone Institute, Hungarian Deportation: An Objectivity Lesson, Thoughts on the Jewish Problem and the HoloHoax, Britains collusion in creating death camp atrocity lies exposed, Director says knowledge about Auschwitz came from survivors testimonies, Stop Special Treatment for Jews a way forward, New Jersey authorities expose Jewish welfare fraud, How Orthodox Jewry is robbing an American town, Religion is key to Lakewood's 'special treatment' for Jews, New Jersey rabbis face prison in kidnapping conspiracy, Explosive growth of the ultra-Orthodox community in Lakewood, Lakewood's woes: Jews create chaos in Gentile societies, Lakewood Orthodox welfare cheats offered amnesty, Large Orthodox Jew families an unfair burden for schools, Rapid growth of Orthodox population creating havoc in NY-NJ, Orthodox clinic owner steals $7 mil from Medicaid, Mosberg indicted in 2008 on corruption, bribery charges, New Jersey town's losing battle to prevent Orthodox Jewish takeover, Seven NY Orthodox in $14 million scam to steal school money, Brooklyn clinic owned by Orthodox Jews investigated for vaccine fraud, Fox News on problems Hasidic Jews bring to U.S. communities, Kevin MacDonald on record saying whether the Holocaust actually happened is not important, Greg Johnson echos Kevin MacDonald in opposing 'Holocaust' revisionism - One must ask why, Everything Greg Johnson knows about Holocaust Revisionism he learned from Mark Weber, The Goebbels-Vlasov-Irving Question, Part 2, The Rise and Fall of Tribal Administrator Rodney Martin, Giesler on Speer: The Battle of the Architects, Referendum of April 10th, 1938; 1939 & the Napola School, The Odyssey of Fahnenjunker Wenger (part one), The Odyssey of Fahnenjunker Wenger (part two), The Final Flight of Poldi Wenger - April 10, 1945, The Passing of an Era Remembering Willy Wenger 1926-2017, Great Ride to Nuremberg for 1937 N-S Party Convention, Sicily and Lake Constance, June-Nov. 1943, Last letters from Eastern Front, Aug. 1944-Jan. 1945, A close encounter between wartime rivals only revealed 74 years later, Searching for the roots of persistent anti-Germanism, Interview: Horst Mahler on the German Reich, Interview: G. S. Viereck's 1923 interview with Adolf Hitler, Odeonsplatz: Interview with Werner Bruninger, On 'Jewish Democracy' and 'The Importance of the Spoken Word', On Connecting With The Mass and The 'Away-From-Rome' Movement, On 'Defects in our Educational System' and 'Concentration on a Single Enemy', On The State, part 2 Nature and Purpose, On The State, part 3 Racial Hygiene and Physical Education, On The State, part 4 - Needed changes in education, On The State, part 5 - Selecting talent over social class, On Subjects and Citizens in the National Socialist State, On Personality and the Folkish State-Concept, On the Early Struggle: Significance of the Spoken Word, On Worldview and Organization of the Folkish State, Regarding the Meaning and Organization of the S.A. (Part One), Regarding the Meaning and Organization of the S.A. (Part Two), Regarding the Meaning and Organization of the S.A. (Part Three), Germany's Policy in Eastern Europe, Part One, Germany's Policy in Eastern Europe, Part Two. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Incoherent, lacking in understanding, ignorant, uninformed all these words apply to you, true. Most people were inured to the treatment going on. I was individual, as I call it, because I didnt want to involve other people and be responsible for them at that time. Because Avey's basic story has already been thoroughly critiqued by me and others, I will now focus attention on the principals who conspired to create this hoax on the public by building up, even encouraging, the ridiculous tall tales of an old WWII veteran. "[10] Ernst, like Avey, refused to burden anyone with his own suffering and never talked about Auschwitz until very late in life. On April 9, 2011 Guy Walters wrote in the Daily Mail that Avey's story is not believable. I used to say to the stripeys, What happened to so-and so, I havent seen him today.Oh, he went up the chimney last night. That was the attitude. For that he was made a British Hero of the Holocaust in 2010. That's because Denis also claimed to have broken in to the Nazi concentration camp itself. The powerful World Jewish Congress has also changed course and called on the publishers to verify the historical accuracy of the book. Did US-UK alliance against Germany-Austria begin long before 1917? [15], When war crime prosecutors later sought Avey's testimony for the Nuremberg Trials, they were unable to locate him. This programme is not currently available on BBC iPlayer. It is to put you in chains and make you a slave. After 65 years of silence, 92-year-old Denis Avey tells an astounding story in The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz. Minor nitpick Carolyn - Brown was never elected PM. If my hair had been long, Id have been recognized. Avey married twice and pursued a career in engineering, which culminated in him building a factory near Newcastle. "These individuals are true British heroes and a source of national pride for all of us," Brown said in a statement. Now Avey has come out with a book, The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz, which immediately became a best-seller (so they say) in the UK, but has not been released yet in the U.S. He spent time in several prisoner-of-war camps in Italy and Germany, and eventually in the autumn of 1943 was sent to the E715 camp near Monowitz, part of the Auschwitz camp complex. That's why people need to keep on telling stories like this that people like you may get more frustrated with the truth Not that bad? But I am proud to have played a small part in helping one man through the obscenity of Auschwitz."[17]. 
Then the difficult questions began. Avey said that he exchanged uniforms with a Jewish prisoner and smuggled himself into Auschwitz to witness the treatment of Jewish inmates, whose camp was separate from but adjoined that of British POWs. These people engage in telling lies to each other, congratulating one other on these lies, while the media does its part in carrying the lies to the public and repeating them until lies come to be fundamental to our thinking. Not killed. He spent four years in POW Each eye witness testimony is a stand-alone, none of them seem to mesh with each other. Anton LaVey - Into the Devil's Den: Directed by Carl Abrahamsson. I could speak German, but I coughed and spluttered purposely if I was questioned by a German so they wouldnt recognize my English accent. The sounds of nightmaresbut also the prayers they were singing. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Nevertheless, British historian Lyn Smith, who interviewed Avey for the Imperial War Museum in 2001,[13] insisted that he was an "utterly reliable witness", and defended Avey in the face of these doubts, saying "It's pitiful what happened to him." He spent time in several prisoner-of-war camps in Italy and Germany, and eventually in the autumn of 1943 was sent to the E715 camp near Monowitz, part of the Auschwitz camp complex. They got less than 1,000 calories a day. He later changed the location of the camp to a factory worker site and the identity of the Jewish camp survivor to a man called Hans, who has never been traced. Dr Piotr Setkiewicz, the head historian at Auschwitz, said outright that he did not believe Mr Avey's story of the swap. Rob Broomby is a British Affairs correspondent for the BBC World Service. Last year, I wrote an article published here about Denis Avey, a man whose newly-released WWII concentration camp survivor story was getting a lot of attention in the British press. He wrote about this heroic act, verified by the man he saved, in a best-selling book. Why are you obsessed with race? The soup you could smell it a mile off, made of cabbage leaves and potato peelings, maybe. That is just sad. Can You Spot the Hidden Symbols in DCs World War II Memorial. But that's the sort of chap I was. 
I know what I did.. A former British prisoner of war who helped a Jewish inmate survive Auschwitz is being considered for a major honour, the BBC has learned. 
This backfired on the Tories, strengthening Brown's belief that being pro-Auschwitz was good public relations and good politics. They decline to look at the evidence. All information from Denis Avey's autobiography, "How a BBC investigation found genuine 'Hero of the Holocaust', "Qualification of Award of British Hero of the Holocaust Award 2010", "The curious case of the 'break into Auschwitz', "THE MAN WHO BROKE INTO AUSCHWITZ by Denis Avey with Rob Broomby", "Nonfiction Book Review: The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II by Denis Avey with Rob Broomby", "The man who smuggled himself into Auschwitz", "Denis Avey, Auschwitz witness - obituary", "British PoW Who Broke Into Auschwitz and Survived", "Auschwitz Wasn't Inhuman, It Was Bestial", "Denis Avey's story pre-empted by Hodder", "Holocaust historian defends man who broke into Auschwitz", "Veteran defends disputed story of Auschwitz heroics", "Full text of updated Notes section to Avey's book", Denis Avey and Rob Broomby address the Oxford University Chabad Society, British P.O.W. If I'd known he was living in America, I would have gone and found him, without doubt. The Germans marched the stripeys out three days before us. The Racial Awakening of the German People by Dr. Rudolf Frercks, parts 1-3, The Racial Awakening of the German People by Dr. Rudolf Frercks, parts 4-8, The Racial Awakening of the German People by Dr. Rudolf Frercks, parts 9-10, The Fatherland weekly covered the Great The War in Europe from a German-American perspective, Lying during war: A sampling from The Fatherland. "We pay tribute to them for the inspiration they provide now and for future generations to come." Avey explained to The Daily Telegraph that he was the type that needed to see things for himself: My mates didn't want me to do it but they agreed because they realised I was going to do it, and that was that. Brown had proclaimed at that time: "We will create national awards in Britain for those British citizens who helped so many people, Jewish and other citizens, during the Holocaust period.". If I was caught, the guards would have shot me out of hand as an imposter. Fortunately I had a mantra that kept me away from death: I didnt inter cede. While British POWs were forced to work six days a week, they could use their free time to play football and basketball. That's because Denis also claimed to have broken in to the Nazi concentration camp itself. The BBC first heard about Denis Avey in 2003 when he appeared on a BBC program discussing war pensions. If I am telling the truth, why dont you believe me? He began to speak about Auschwitz, where he said he had "come to witness", calling it "like hell on earth." But he couldn't have done it without the cooperation of all those other British elites who do exactly the same thing. Britain's legally blind Prime Minister Gordon Brown (right) touches the arm of Denis Avey as Avey recounts his exploits at a meeting at number 10 Downing Street in London on Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2010. Another 20,000 came from the main camps after. 93-year-old Denis Avey is a British Hero of the Holocaust who helped save the life of an Auschwitz inmate. [5] After his prisoner transport ship was torpedoed he claimed to have escaped to Greece by floating ashore on top of a packing crate, but was recaptured after landing.[6]. Many disbelieve his claims that he broke into the concentration camp. For this film, I've met and interviewed some of them, to try and create a composite image of what he Last year the BBC screened a moving documentary, during which Avey learnt for the first time that his old friend had survived the war and died in New York in 2001. The book, The Man who Broke into Auschwitz, went on to be a best-seller and has been translated into a number of languages. 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