This week Jack Fairweather won the Costa Prize for his book The Volunteer. It was only when they were in their 60s, as the iron curtain fell, that the details of Witold Pilecki’s extraordinary second world war mission began to emerge. Jack Fairweather was in his late 30s and the father of two young children when he began work on the book. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Witold Pilecki at a show trial in Poland in 1948. Pilecki, writes Fairweather, “quickly picks up the bear and hands it to the boy and the mother lets the Germans in.

Source: The Guardian January 29, 2020 16:49 UTC