Winner of the 2019 Costa Best Book of the Year Award this is the true story of Witold Pilecki.  In the Summer of 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Poland, an underground operative accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands of people being interned at a new concentration camp on the border of the Reich. Rumours that Auschwitz was a particularly brutal place needed to be verified and the Polish underground wanted to find out about conditions there.

This is a meticulously researched study of Witold’s experiences and a page-turning account of the unfolding horrors he witnessed together with the failure of the allies to act on his reports.

Fascinating
Simon Sebag Montefiore

Remarkable
Peter Frankopan

Superbly written
Sebastian Junger