The Auschwitz Goalkeeper

Book excerpt: The Auschwitz Goalkeeper is a prisoner of war's true story. It is the story of a man who endured the horrors of the most notorious death camp of them all, before being brutally forced to march across Europe as the SS retreated before the advancing Russians. This is no sanitized, boys'-own adventure. Indeed, it is a book which gives the lie to the self-glorifying claims of some of Ron Jones's fellow British POWs at Auschwitz: "I have chosen to speak out 70 years after the event because I am concerned by other accounts which focus on personal heroism and downgrade the conduct of honest, less fanciful prisoners." It is this sense of outrage that has prompted a 96-year-old man to set the record straight, once and for all: "It is my intention to tell it exactly as it was. The fact that British POWs ended up in Auschwitz needs no embroidery and receives none here... It was a truly terrible time, and I witnessed things I wouldn't wish my worst enemy to see."