Jack Fairweather’s biography of the Polish resistance fighter who infiltrated Auschwitz to report on what was taking place there has won the Costa Book of the Year prize.
The Volunteer, hailed by chair of judges Sian Williams as “a book that needs to be read”, tells the story of how Polish resistance fighter Witold Pilecki assumed a false name to be captured and taken to the death camp, in order to bear witness to what happened.
He survived in the camp for two years, smuggling reports out, before escaping and rejoining the Polish resistance.
After the war, he was executed by the Polish Communists as an enemy of the state.
