Fighting Auschwitz

One of history's best-kept secrets is now an award-winning book! The incredible story of the underground prisoner resistance organization at Auschwitz.

When the Germans opened Auschwitz in June 1940, it was a concentration camp for political prisoners, who were told on arrival that they would live no longer than three months. Two years later, the Germans expanded Auschwitz to also become a death camp for Jews.

Underground resistance appeared at Auschwitz very quickly, spearheaded in 1940 by one of the bravest men ever to live, Polish army officer Captain Witold Pilecki.

This is the definitive study of underground resistance at Auschwitzmeticulously researched and highly readable, based on extensive unpublished as well as published first-person accounts and archival sources.

In this book, Jozef Garlinski traces the evolution and operations of the principal prisoner resistance organizations (including communist as well as non-communist groups). He delves into the relationships among these groups, as well as their relationships with the various political and multinational factions in the prisoner population, including both male and female, and with the underground outside the camp. He describes their efforts against the brutal SS men and informers.

In parallel, he documents the growth and evolution of Auschwitz itself, and the horrors of the industrialized death factory for Jews created by the Germans.

Garlinski, a member of the Polish underground during World War II, was himself a prisoner at Auschwitz.

More than 200 photos, maps and other illustrations, five Appendices, extensive Bibliography, detailed Indexes, and Discussion Questions. Introduction by Prof. Antony Polonsky, Chief Historian, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University; Foreword by Professor M. R. D. Foot; Afterword by the author's son Jarek Garlinski.

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