Denis Avey
| Denis Avey | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
11 January 1919 Essex, England |
| Died | 16 July 2015 (aged 96) Bakewell, Derbyshire, England |
| Buried at | St. Barnabas Church, Bradwell, Derbyshire |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom
|
| Service/branch |
 British Army
|
| Unit | 7th Armoured Division |
| Battles/wars | |
| Awards | British Hero of the Holocaust |
| Other work | Engineer author |
Denis Avey (11 January 1919 – 16 July 2015) was a British veteran of the Second World War who was held as a prisoner of war at Auschwitz. Whilst there he saved the life of Jewish prisoner Ernst Lobethal, by smuggling cigarettes to him. For that he was made a British Hero of the Holocaust in 2010.
He also 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. His claim has been challenged. His memoir The Man who Broke into Auschwitz, written with Rob Broomby, was published in 2011.
Avey was born in Essex, outside 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". He was captured by the Germans while attacking Rommel's forces near Tobruk, Libya, and saw his best friend killed next to him. He claims to have 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 placed in the E715 prison camp for British soldiers, next door to the Auschwitz concentration camp where Jews were imprisoned. He was there from 1943 until January 1945. While there he befriended a Jewish inmate of Auschwitz, Ernst Lobethal, from the adjoining Jewish section. He obtained cigarettes from Ernst's sister, who had escaped from Germany to Britain on a Kindertransport before the war. He secretly passed the cigarettes to Ernst who would use them as currency to help him survive.
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.
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Wikipedia