AS SEEN ON THE BBC TV DOCUMENTARY AUSCHWITZ: THE FORGOTTEN WITNESS
"An extraordinary book."--Military Illustrated
"Colin Rushton's masterly account . . . is a harrowing addition to public knowledge of the Holocaust."--Soldier magazine
The shocking story of a British POW's fourteen-month confinement in Auschwitz, this compelling history presents the experiences of Arthur Dodd, a driver and volunteer for the Royal Army Service Corps during World War II. When Dodd was captured by the German Army in 1942 and taken into the Third Reich's most notorious death camp, he became one of a largely forgotten and unnoticed group of military prisoners incarcerated by the Nazis.
Written from a uniquely non-Jewish viewpoint, this work sheds new light on the operations at the camp as it exposes a hierarchy of treatment of POWs based on nationality at the hands of the SS. Perhaps most surprising is the revelation regarding the ambivalence of the British government toward the POWs after they were released.
With clarity and pathos, Colin Rushton documents Dodd's life in the camp, itemizing the everyday horrors of life in Auschwitz from the perspective of a British soldier. Determined to make the best of his situation, Dodd risked his life to aid Jewish prisoners, sabotaged Nazi industrial work, and assisted in planning a mass breakout. Including accounts from Jewish prisoners and other British citizens, responses to Dodd's story, and snapshots from affidavits from the Nuremberg trials, this true story stands as an important contribution to the study of the Holocaust and its atrocities.