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| The Costa winner on his Auschwitz book: 'This is my greatest adventure' | The Costa winner on his Auschwitz book: 'This is my greatest adventure' |
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| Costa-winner Jack Fairweather reveals the extraordinary story behind The Volunteer, his book about a Polish resistance hero who infiltrated the Nazi death camp | Costa-winner Jack Fairweather reveals the extraordinary story behind The Volunteer, his book about a Polish resistance hero who infiltrated the Nazi death camp |
| One spring day in 1948, two children were sitting at their school desks in Poland when the tannoy crackled into life to announce that their father had just been executed as an enemy of the state. Andrzej and Zofia Pilecki knew nothing about the mission that had taken their father away from them for most of their childhood. It was only when they were in their 60s, as the iron curtain fell, that the details of Witold Pilecki’s extraordinary second world war mission began to emerge. | One spring day in 1948, two children were sitting at their school desks in Poland when the tannoy crackled into life to announce that their father had just been executed as an enemy of the state. Andrzej and Zofia Pilecki knew nothing about the mission that had taken their father away from them for most of their childhood. It was only when they were in their 60s, as the iron curtain fell, that the details of Witold Pilecki’s extraordinary second world war mission began to emerge. |
| Then, in 2011, a British war correspondent who was looking for a new subject after covering wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, stumbled across the story. He discovered that Pilecki, a former cavalry officer, had become a leading member of the Polish resistance – and deliberately got himself interned in Auschwitz so that he could send intelligence to London. He survived that ordeal only to fall into the hands of the Soviet regime, who took possession of Poland in the postwar carve-up of Europe. | Then, in 2011, a British war correspondent who was looking for a new subject after covering wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, stumbled across the story. He discovered that Pilecki, a former cavalry officer, had become a leading member of the Polish resistance – and deliberately got himself interned in Auschwitz so that he could send intelligence to London. He survived that ordeal only to fall into the hands of the Soviet regime, who took possession of Poland in the postwar carve-up of Europe. |
| Jack Fairweather was in his late 30s and the father of two young children when he began work on the book. When The Volunteer was crowned Costa book of the year this week, Fairweather paid an emotional tribute to Andrzej and Zofia, who were among hundreds of survivors who helped him piece together their father’s story. | Jack Fairweather was in his late 30s and the father of two young children when he began work on the book. When The Volunteer was crowned Costa book of the year this week, Fairweather paid an emotional tribute to Andrzej and Zofia, who were among hundreds of survivors who helped him piece together their father’s story. |
| In undertaking the task, Fairweather knew he would have to honour Pilecki’s own insistence that “any falsehood would profane the memory of my fallen colleagues”. Every single word of the book is either from Pilecki’s own writing, from interviews Fairweather conducted, or from first-hand accounts by people who lived alongside Pilecki, drawn from the many thousands of testimonies held in the Auschwitz museum. | In undertaking the task, Fairweather knew he would have to honour Pilecki’s own insistence that “any falsehood would profane the memory of my fallen colleagues”. Every single word of the book is either from Pilecki’s own writing, from interviews Fairweather conducted, or from first-hand accounts by people who lived alongside Pilecki, drawn from the many thousands of testimonies held in the Auschwitz museum. |
| Sitting in his publisher’s office the day after his win, Fairweather sums up the five years he spent on the book: “Years of always chasing your quarry and looking for a glimpse – for one of those very special moments when you suddenly see the full man. It can be a story detail or a snippet you find in the archive.” | Sitting in his publisher’s office the day after his win, Fairweather sums up the five years he spent on the book: “Years of always chasing your quarry and looking for a glimpse – for one of those very special moments when you suddenly see the full man. It can be a story detail or a snippet you find in the archive.” |
| One such nugget popped up when he took Pilecki’s octogenarian nephew back to the Warsaw flat the nephew’s family had lived in when he was a toddler. The nephew was just three the night his uncle was taken away. He remembered that his teddy bear had just fallen out of his cot. Pilecki, writes Fairweather, “quickly picks up the bear and hands it to the boy and the mother lets the Germans in. ‘See you soon,’ he whispers to the child. Then, against every instinct he must have had, he steps into captivity.” | One such nugget popped up when he took Pilecki’s octogenarian nephew back to the Warsaw flat the nephew’s family had lived in when he was a toddler. The nephew was just three the night his uncle was taken away. He remembered that his teddy bear had just fallen out of his cot. Pilecki, writes Fairweather, “quickly picks up the bear and hands it to the boy and the mother lets the Germans in. ‘See you soon,’ he whispers to the child. Then, against every instinct he must have had, he steps into captivity.” |
| The story must have become a family anecdote, Fairweather says. “For me, it really spoke of one of his great characteristics: at times of greatest stress, when you’d expect him to be thinking of himself, he was always able to reach out and engage with other people.” Part of the puzzle, adds the 41-year-old author, lay in working out what drove “this apparently ordinary man, with no great record of service, to expand his empathy, his moral capacity, to piece together the Nazis’ greatest crimes when others looked away”. | The story must have become a family anecdote, Fairweather says. “For me, it really spoke of one of his great characteristics: at times of greatest stress, when you’d expect him to be thinking of himself, he was always able to reach out and engage with other people.” Part of the puzzle, adds the 41-year-old author, lay in working out what drove “this apparently ordinary man, with no great record of service, to expand his empathy, his moral capacity, to piece together the Nazis’ greatest crimes when others looked away”. |
| Pilecki managed to get 10 reports smuggled out of the death camp during his two and a half years there, but they fell on deaf ears and were forgotten. Their significance only began to emerge in the early 90s, when Polish archives – sealed by the Soviets – were opened to Polish historians. But one important piece of the jigsaw was missing: the testimony Pilecki was known to have written during a spell in Italy after he escaped from Auschwitz by using a duplicate key made by a metalworker friend in the camp. | |
| “The goosebumps moment,” says Fairweather, “was when my researcher phoned me from the Polish Underground Study Trust in London saying it had been found.” The document – entrusted to a colleague when Pilecki made the fatal decision to return to his homeland under the Soviets – had been handed over to the Polish government in exile in the 60s, but had been kept secret for fear of reprisals against people it named. “There it was in his loopy blue handwriting,” says Fairweather, “still in a little beige folder.” | “The goosebumps moment,” says Fairweather, “was when my researcher phoned me from the Polish Underground Study Trust in London saying it had been found.” The document – entrusted to a colleague when Pilecki made the fatal decision to return to his homeland under the Soviets – had been handed over to the Polish government in exile in the 60s, but had been kept secret for fear of reprisals against people it named. “There it was in his loopy blue handwriting,” says Fairweather, “still in a little beige folder.” |
| One of the most poignant discoveries for Fairweather was that the second world war didn’t end in May 1945 for Poland and a lot of Europe. “For us, it was victory parades and celebrations. But for them, it marked the transition to the brutality of Stalin, when more than 80,000 people who had resisted the Nazis were arrested and tortured. Hundreds were shot and thousands more deported to the gulag.” | One of the most poignant discoveries for Fairweather was that the second world war didn’t end in May 1945 for Poland and a lot of Europe. “For us, it was victory parades and celebrations. But for them, it marked the transition to the brutality of Stalin, when more than 80,000 people who had resisted the Nazis were arrested and tortured. Hundreds were shot and thousands more deported to the gulag.” |
| Growing up in Wales, the eldest of four children born to teacher parents, Fairweather was steeped in a war history that made little mention of the Polish resistance. “We always think of the French,” he says, “but Polish intelligence was much bigger and more sophisticated.” | Growing up in Wales, the eldest of four children born to teacher parents, Fairweather was steeped in a war history that made little mention of the Polish resistance. “We always think of the French,” he says, “but Polish intelligence was much bigger and more sophisticated.” |
| Pilecki survived in the camp by using his underground contacts to wangle the relatively easy jobs of carpenter and hospital block handyman, though they did not shield him from witnessing Auschwitz’s horrors. “One day while scratching in the frozen earth for roots,” writes Fairweather, “he had the grim thought that they’d be better off if the British simply bombed the camp and brought an end to the suffering.” Pilecki developed this thought in one of his reports, reasoning that nobody would die in vain if Auschwitz was obliterated, because it would expose what was going on, while ending the “monstrous suffering”. | |
| Fairweather arrived at the book via an Oxford degree followed by a career as a war correspondent, which began when his tutor suggested him for a job at a Kolkata newspaper. While working there as a copy editor on the letters page, he took himself off to report on the 2002 terrorist attack on the US cultural centrein the city, selling it to the Daily Telegraph in the UK “for three months of my salary at the paper”. He was given a break as a stringer in Kuwait where, “by a bizarre coincidence”, a former schoolfriend of his mother’s turned out to be a member of the Kuwaiti royal family and head of the civil service. His first big scoop was an interview in which, contrary to official briefings, the Kuwaiti foreign minister said the country would be happy to be the launchpad for an attack on Iraq aimed at toppling Saddam Hussein. | Fairweather arrived at the book via an Oxford degree followed by a career as a war correspondent, which began when his tutor suggested him for a job at a Kolkata newspaper. While working there as a copy editor on the letters page, he took himself off to report on the 2002 terrorist attack on the US cultural centrein the city, selling it to the Daily Telegraph in the UK “for three months of my salary at the paper”. He was given a break as a stringer in Kuwait where, “by a bizarre coincidence”, a former schoolfriend of his mother’s turned out to be a member of the Kuwaiti royal family and head of the civil service. His first big scoop was an interview in which, contrary to official briefings, the Kuwaiti foreign minister said the country would be happy to be the launchpad for an attack on Iraq aimed at toppling Saddam Hussein. |
| Stints in Afghanistan and Iraq followed, resulting in two books. He talks of “the heroism of ordinary people” – in particular, the Iraqi driver who, with Fairweather typing out the story of an attempted suicide bombing in the back seat, managed to outrun a Shia squad who had been sent to kidnap him. “We were bouncing all over the place for 45 minutes. I was saying, ‘Please drive more carefully. I’m trying to write a piece.” Only when they’d arrived back in Baghdad and he had filed his story did his driver tell him exactly what had been going on. | Stints in Afghanistan and Iraq followed, resulting in two books. He talks of “the heroism of ordinary people” – in particular, the Iraqi driver who, with Fairweather typing out the story of an attempted suicide bombing in the back seat, managed to outrun a Shia squad who had been sent to kidnap him. “We were bouncing all over the place for 45 minutes. I was saying, ‘Please drive more carefully. I’m trying to write a piece.” Only when they’d arrived back in Baghdad and he had filed his story did his driver tell him exactly what had been going on. |
| It’s a great tale but, he says, it is nothing compared with what Pilecki lived through. “To be able to get this man’s story was the greatest adventure of my career. My books about Iraq and Afghanistan were attempts to understand what I’d experienced. But in this case, I was trying to follow in the footsteps of this man – and be confronted by history as it confronted him.” He adds: “When we think of western war heroes, they give us solace and a story about our experience. But Poland wasn’t ever able to commemorate its heroes because for decades they were ‘enemies of the people’.” | It’s a great tale but, he says, it is nothing compared with what Pilecki lived through. “To be able to get this man’s story was the greatest adventure of my career. My books about Iraq and Afghanistan were attempts to understand what I’d experienced. But in this case, I was trying to follow in the footsteps of this man – and be confronted by history as it confronted him.” He adds: “When we think of western war heroes, they give us solace and a story about our experience. But Poland wasn’t ever able to commemorate its heroes because for decades they were ‘enemies of the people’.” |
| Fairweather – who now lives between London and Vermont with his American wife, the journalist Christina Asquith – is well aware that The Volunteer owes part of its power to the fact that Auschwitz is now passing out of living human memory. “I wanted to speak to as many people who had witnessed Pilecki in action – and many of the people I interviewed are now dead.” | Fairweather – who now lives between London and Vermont with his American wife, the journalist Christina Asquith – is well aware that The Volunteer owes part of its power to the fact that Auschwitz is now passing out of living human memory. “I wanted to speak to as many people who had witnessed Pilecki in action – and many of the people I interviewed are now dead.” |
| He pauses. “We’re living in a time of turmoil, with resurgent nationalism and rising antisemitism. That’s why Pilecki’s story is so important. I find it really inspiring. He immersed himself in the darkest moment of human history and somehow found the courage to rise above it.” | He pauses. “We’re living in a time of turmoil, with resurgent nationalism and rising antisemitism. That’s why Pilecki’s story is so important. I find it really inspiring. He immersed himself in the darkest moment of human history and somehow found the courage to rise above it.” |