Arthur Dodd ( Auschwitz survivor ) Arthur Dodd ( born 7 December 1919 in Northwich , Cheshire – 17 January 2011 ) served in the British Army during World War II and was a Prisoner of War at Auschwitz III ( Monowitz ) , a sub - camp of the notorious Auschwitz . Biography . Early life . Dodd ' s father served in the British Army during the Boer War and was a Sergeant during World War I when he was captured . Dodd left school in 1934 aged 15 , and became an apprentice mechanic for a motor transport company in his native Northwich , moving to the Weaver Navigation Company in 1937 . In September 1938 , he nearly lost his left foot when it became trapped between a ramp and a turning wheel . He received extensive physiotherapy for his injuries , but still only received a rating of ' B2 ' when he tried to enlist into the Army , too low to allow him to join up . However , as he had an HGV licence , he was permitted to enlist as a military driving instructor for the Royal Army Service Corps . Military service . At the beginning of World War II Dodd served as a volunteer in France and was involved in the Dunkirk evacuation . Later , he was posted to North Africa and was in action at Tobruk . After Tobruk , Dodd and an injured colleague were captured by the enemy at Badir in the Western Desert . After being held in a number of ordinary Italian POW camps , in 1943 he was transferred to Auschwitz III ( Monowitz ) labour camp only five miles away from the better - known extermination camp of Auschwitz II ( Birkenau ) . Monowitz was under the direction of the industrial company IG Farben , who were building a Buna ( synthetic rubber ) and liquid fuel plant there , and housed over 10 , 000 Jewish slave labourers , as well as POWs and forced labourers from all over occupied Europe . Auschwitz III ( Monowitz ) . When Dodd and the POW s disembarked they noticed dozens of bundles of clothing that had just been left by the rail tracks . As they were marched to the concentration camp and factory where they would be working , Dodd tells of a teenage Jewish girl , stripped to the waist , who he says was being savagely whipped by an SS officer . Dodd and the other POWs attempted to get between him and the bleeding girl . The SS officer pulled out his pistol and threatened to shoot Dodd , who was at the front , if he interfered further . A Wehrmacht soldier warned Dodd that he meant what he said . The British troops stepped aside and the officer resumed his task of beating the girl . The filth of Camp E715 , with its accompanying smell of burning flesh from the crematorium at nearby Auschwitz II ( Birkenau ) , was to be Dodd ' s home for the next 14 months . During his imprisonment in Camp E715 , Dodd witnessed the mistreatment and killing of Jewish inmates at the camp by their SS guards , including Jews hanging from the gallows in Auschwitz I and several pushed off high scaffolding . Some of the British POW s frequently put themselves in danger to try to get any scraps of food they could spare to the prisoners in the Jewish section . Others refused to help , believing that the Jewish inmates were simply being rightfully punished for some crime they must have committed . Forced to work , many POWs deliberately sabotaged the pipes they were working on by placing stones or blank flanges into the pipes . Suspicious , on one occasion a German engineer ordered a pressure test on the pipes . Horrified , the POWs knew that not one single pipe would pass such a test and realised that they would be shot in no less than 20 minutes . As the test was being prepared the air raid siren went off , and they were ordered into the shelters . Dodd later said : " We knew that they had found out what we had done . They had us lined up against a wall to shoot us as soon as the pipes failed the test . I had just said a prayer when the air - raid siren went and everyone , guards and prisoners , dived into the air raid shelters . We heard a bomb fall and when the raid was over we saw that the only bomb to hit the factory had blown out the wall where the pipes were . God was looking after us that day . Maybe John Wesley had a hand in it as well . " When the air raid ended the British troops were led out of the shelter and , to their relief , saw that the only building hit by a bomb had been the BAU 38 - the place where the pressure test was to take place . All of the pipes had been destroyed . During a further air raid on 24 August 1944 , Dodd and other POWs were in a shelter which was hit by a bomb , killing 38 British POWs and wounding Dodd and others . These 38 POWs are commemorated on a plaque which was unveiled on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 2005 . Their remains were interred in the Kraków Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery . In late 1944 , the British POWs heard a noise outside their huts . On going outside to investigate , they saw about a thousand Jews , old men , women and children , walking towards Auschwitz II ( Birkenau ) on the other side of the perimeter wire . The children were playing and singing as they passed . Once they had gone , the men returned to their huts in silence . They had been told in the past of the fate of such columns of walking Jews . Freedom . On 23 January 1945 , four days before Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army , in the coldest winter Poland had experienced for years , the British POWs were given the option by their German guards to either start walking eastwards towards the Russians or westwards towards the Americans . Dodd chose the latter . In the weeks of walking during this ' Death March ' , when the temperature often dropped to minus 25 degrees , the walking men froze , and some starved to death . As they walked , they passed the partially snow - covered bodies of hundreds of dead Jews , some of whom had died from cold or their exertions , while others had clearly been shot . Those POWs who had greatcoats , shared them , and they slept huddled together to stave off the cold . In the towns they passed , they witnessed the slaughter by the retreating Nazis . On reaching Regensburg in Germany , Dodd and his colleagues were finally liberated . After the War Dodd worked for British Waterways in Northwich . On 21 September 1946 , he married Olwen . They have two children , six grandchildren and ten great grandchildren . Spectator in Hell . Dodd ' s story is told in the book " Spectator in Hell " by Colin Rushton , first published by Pharaoh Press in 1998 and subsequently republished by Summersdale Publishers Ltd in 2001 and 2005 . His story was also told in the television documentaries " Satan at His Best " ( 1995 ) and in the BBC ' s " Auschwitz : The Forgotten Witness " ( 1997 ) . In the latter programme , Dodd returns to Auschwitz to find the location of Camp E715 , and tries unsuccessfully to gain admission to the IG Farben plant to claim the 14 months backwages he says they owe him for his forced wartime labour there . Decline & Death . In November 2009 it was reported in the " Wirral News " that , aged 90 , Dodd was battling with Alzheimer ' s disease and required full - time care at a care home in Cheshire . A campaign was launched to raise the £500 a week needed to cover the cost of his care . He died in the early hours of 17 January 2011 aged 91 .