The Saboteur of Auschwitz: A British POW’s Eyewitness Account

by Colin Rushton 

The Saboteur of Auschwitz is another heart-wrenching account of the atrocities that went on in Auschwitz. It’s incredible that anyone managed to survive. It must have seemed like such a hopeless situation. I can’t even begin to imagine.

This is the first book I’ve read from the point of view of a British prisoner of war though. I wasn’t even aware there were British POWs held there, which shows my ignorance. I’ve learned new things again from this perspective and I think it’s important that we learn as much as we can about this horrific time in history. I can understand why those who survived are telling their stories. Especially those who are keeping promises to others who asked them to make sure they tell the world what they went through, if they survived long enough to do so.

It’s shocking that there are a massive number of children in this world that actually think these stories are fictional! That really needs to be rectified.

In 1942, young British soldier Arthur Dodd was taken prisoner by the German Army and transported to Oswiecim in Polish Upper Silesia. The Germans gave it another name, now synonymous with mankind’s darkest hours. They called it Auschwitz.

Forced to do hard labour, starved and savagely beaten, Arthur thought his life would end in Auschwitz. Determined to go down fighting, he sabotaged Nazi industrial work, risked his life to alleviate the suffering of the Jewish prisoners and aided a partisan group planning a mass break-out.

This shocking true story sheds new light on the operations at the camp, exposes a hierarchy of prisoner treatment by the SS and presents the largely unknown story of the military POWs held there.