World Prisons
All persons

Denis Avey

1919–2015

Nationality
United Kingdom
Occupation
autobiographer

Denis Avey (11 January 1919 – 16 July 2015) was a British veteran of the Second World War who was held as a prisoner of war at E715, a subcamp of Auschwitz concentration camp.

Incarceration history

Facilities

Biography

Denis Avey (11 January 1919 – 16 July 2015) was a British veteran of the Second World War who was held as a prisoner of war at E715, a subcamp of Auschwitz concentration camp. While there he saved the life of a Jewish prisoner, Ernst Lobethal, by smuggling cigarettes to him. For that he was made a British Hero of the Holocaust in 2010. Avey claimed that he exchanged uniforms with a Jewish prisoner and smuggled himself into Auschwitz to witness the treatment of Jewish inmates, whose camp was separate from but adjoined that of British POWs. His claim has been challenged. His memoir The Man who Broke into Auschwitz, written with Rob Broomby, was published in 2011.

Related people

Same nationality and era where possible; falls back to shared nationality or era.

  • Roger Caron
    1938–2012United Kingdom

    Roger "Mad Dog" Caron (April 12, 1938 – April 11, 2012) was a Canadian robber and the author of the influential prison memoir Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars (1978).

  • William MacDowell
    1942–2023United Kingdom
  • Ronnie Biggs
    Ronnie Biggs
    1929–2013United Kingdom

    Ronald Arthur Biggs (8 August 1929 – 18 December 2013) was a British criminal who helped plan and carry out the Great Train Robbery of 1963.

  • Maurice Southgate
    1913–1990United Kingdom

    Maurice Southgate (20 June 1913 – 17 March 1990), code named Hector, was an officer in the Royal Air Force and an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization during World War II.

  • Tony Rolt
    Tony Rolt
    1918–2008United Kingdom

    Major Anthony Peter Roylance Rolt, MC & Bar, (16 October 1918 – 6 February 2008) was a British racing driver, soldier and engineer.

  • Lilian Rolfe
    Lilian Rolfe
    1914–1945United Kingdom

    Lilian Vera Rolfe (26 April 1914 – 5 February 1945), code name Nadine, was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organisation in France during World War II.