The Volunteer

Superbly written and breathtakingly researched … a story of incalculable value delivered in the most compelling prose I have read in a long time

Sebastian Junger, #1 New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist

Impossible to believe if it were not so meticulously researched … a page-turner, a remarkable inside-view of the Holocaust, and also as a testament to all that is best in the human spirit

Mark Bowden, bestselling author of BLACK HAWK DOWN

As riveting as any page-turner and as profound as any great work of literature as it reveals humanity’s capacity for both courage and savagery

Elliot Ackerman, ex-Marine, novelist and finalist for the National Book Award

A riveting account of human heroism in the face of overwhelming odds … Fairweather’s storytelling is simply masterful

Jon-Lee Anderson, writer for the New Yorker

Totally gripping … A fascinating, revelatory and surreal WWII story of almost incredible courage and unspeakable horror – how a Polish resistance fighter helped reveal the secret of the final solution from inside Auschwitz

Simon Sebag Montefiore

An outstanding achievement ... a harrowing tale, revealing the depths of human depravity, redeemed by the shining courage and nobility of one of humanity's heroes.

Patrick Bishop, bestselling author FIGHTER BOYS

Witold Pilecki is one of the unsung heroes of World War II. Jack Fairweather has brought Pilecki's story to life with a rich array of primary sources that reveal his role alerting the world to Auschwitz's horrors and its transformation from a concentration camp to the epicenter of the Holocaust. In doing so, Fairweather reminds us that the Nazi leadership didn't start the war with the idea of the Holocaust fully formed - its policy emerged through a series of experiments in mass murder, which Pilecki was able to witness and report on with remarkable courage and tenacity.

Antony Polonsky, Chief Historian, Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Well-researched, well-written and searingly memorable, Jack Fairweather’s book reminds us of the capacity for nobility in the human soul in times of unimaginable peril

Andrew Roberts, bestselling author of ‘Churchill: Walking with Destiny’

A remarkable book. Fairweather’s account is often harrowing; but it is an important account of the suffering and tragedy in Nazi death camps, told using many previously unpublished sources - and from a new perspective.

Peter Frankopan

A forceful narrative with unstoppable reading momentum, Fairweather has created an insightful biography of a covert war hero and an extraordinary contribution to the history of the Holocaust.

Starred booklist review

What distinguishes The Volunteer is Fairweather’s meticulous attention to accuracy … if it sometimes seems as though there is nothing left to uncover about the Holocaust, Fairweather’s gripping book proves otherwise

Caroline Moorehead, The Spectator

An extraordinary story

The Times

Few books have enthralled, incensed and haunted me as "The Volunteer" has done. There were times I felt compelled to set it aside. There were others when hours of reading passed in what felt like moments … This is a story that has long deserved a robust, faithful telling, and he has delivered it

Neal Bascomb, Wall Street Journal

Full of vignettes and deftly drawn characters ... the story of Witold Pilecki has long been crying out for a sensitive, circumspect retelling, which would do just to the man and the to the trying times in which he lived. The Volunteer fulfils those criteria admirably

Roger Moorhouse, History Today

A searing account … a fitting memorial to one of Poland’s greatest war heroes and a shaming indictment of the western allies’ failure to act

Giles Milton, Sunday Times

Jack Fairweather's remarkable book shows why [Pilecki's] courageous efforts to alert the world to what was happening in Auschwitz deserve to be remembered everywhere

Daily Mail

Combines the verve of a thriller with the detailed evidence of the sober, hideous truth

Anne de Courcy, The Telegraph

Picked as one of the best books of 2019 so far

Sunday Times

Witold Pilecki is one of the great—perhaps the greatest—unsung heroes of the second world war ... Jack Fairweather's meticulous and insightful book is likely to be the definitive version of this extraordinary life

Economist

An inspiring story beautifully told

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Fairweather tells this tragic tale in gripping fashion, bringing a new angle to the literature of the Holocaust

Publishers Weekly

Brilliantly researched, Jack Fairweather's book is both gripping and powerfully written - a riveting and deeply moving tale of courage in the face of unimaginable horror

Henry Hemming, bestselling author of M