The Volunteer: the True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather

BATB score: 7.5/10 ⚜️

a very interesting and yet an extremely complicated mission impossible (but was possible). plan - okay so, I'm going in as a prisoner, I'm going to survive, I'm going to collect as much intel as possible, I'll constantly try to relay / seek out info, I'm going to raise a secret army at the camp, then we're going to escape, and we're going to tell world, then we're going to attack from the outside and the inside of concentration camp, and save everybody else who is still alive - any questions?

Best to: it's beyond - the sacrifice of an underground resistance leader who volunteered to join Auschwitz concentration camp as a prisoner (!) to be able to share first-hand intel of what was really happening back to the world or that it can end #damn

Best for: if you have read more than two Holocaust books - Anne Frank's Diaries, Man's Search for Meaning Viktor E. Frankl, or The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris - this book compliments your knowledge of the Holocaust

Best as: seriously, how do you have the brain bandwidth to plan and strategize all this while being tortured? the established network of allies, the morale building skill to teammates, the escape plan, the constant faith that its possible - omg.

Best quotes: “We were enchanted by everything, we were in love with the world.. just not with its people.”

"They wanted to break us and they achieved their goal because we began to fear."

"Either way, the decision was clear: country before family."

"Outside the camp this SS officer appeared to be a respectable man, but once he crossed its threshold he was a sadistic murderer. The fact that he could inhabit both worlds at once seemed most monstrous of all."

"At night they prepared farewell messages for loved ones and discussed whether it was better to die by bullet or gas or phenol. Morale was dangerously low."

"By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people."