It is very difficult to find any factual errors in the masterfully written biography of the Auschwitz volunteer, but I have nevertheless identi-fied some of them of secondary relevance.
Wilhelm Westrych, who employed Pilecki in the camp carpentry shop, was not a kapo, but a vorarbeiter, or so-called foreman. Never did the prisoners line-up in front of the camp Gestapo room, eager to “sell out their comrades” as a result of their denunciations - as Jack Fairweather uncritically quoted after a former prisoner Konstanty Piekarski. After he escaped from KL Auschwitz, Pilecki did not want to meet a priest in Alwernia, where the fugitives mistakenly found themselves, although they intended to find a priest in Poręba-Żegota.
Bolesław Kuczbara was not a camp dentist, but merely a dental technician. Witold Pilecki, contrary to Tomasz Serafiński, whose name he used in the camp, was not an agricultural engineer. Stanisław Jaster, a fugitive from KL Auschwitz, was never tried by the Special Military Court of the Home Army, alt-hough soldiers of the Polish underground most likely killed him. The exact circumstances of Pilecki’s arrest by Security Officers in May 1947 are unknown, and the description of this event in Fairweather’s book is literary fiction.
The uniform layout of the bibliography, without any division into archival sources, newspapers, memoirs and diaries and studies, may raise objections. It should also be noted that the bibliography does not mention the meticulously developed book by Stanisław Kobiela entitled “The Escape of Cavalry Capt. Witold Pilecki from Auschwitz to Bochnia and Wiśnicz”, Bochnia 2018, whose author Jack Fairweather met in person shortly before his death.
“The Volunteer” by Jack Fairweather should be considered as non-fiction literature. The book presents authentic characters and events, and their description is based on a richly collected historical material, partly only fictionalised. From the novel, the author has drawn on the technique of narration and fiction of events, with scientific texts, and combines the factual nature of the historical narration, included in wellthoughtout and neatly presented chapters, with plenty of footnotes. They allow the reader to check the authenticity of the presented facts, which is further supported by biographical notes, persons described in it and an extensive bibliography containing studies and source materials in Polish, German and English, and occasionally in Czech and Sorbian.
The whole is enriched with lots of photographs, documents, plans and diagrams, which are over one hundred and twenty in Jack Fairweather’s book. It is written in accessible and vivid language, presenting the camp fate of Witold Pilecki against the background of the German occupation of Poland, combined with the actions of the Polish Underground State, which intended to put an end to the Holocaust.
Translations of the book into such languages as Dutch, Czech, Russian, Lithuanian, Spanish and Portuguese are underway, which gives us hope that thanks to Pilecki’s character described by the talented biographer Jack Fairweather, readers from other countries will get the opportunity to learn more about the history of Auschwitz. The book will be translated into twenty five languages, including Japanese.
This biography of Witold Pilecki has already become an international bestseller on the American and British market. It was written from the viewpoint of a researcher from outside Polish cultural circles, and therefore it is all the more valuable.
The masterful story of the British journalist about Witold Pilecki is also a work of literature, which very suggestively shows the ability of a man in extreme camp conditions to demonstrate courage and dedication.
Witold Pilecki with his family