laterwork branch death_date death_place birth_place unit image_size awards battles birth_date placeofburial image article_title name
engineer author 23px british army 16 july 2015 bakewell , derbyshire , england essex , england 7th armoured division 200 british hero of the holocaust second world war 11 january 1919 st. barnabas church , bradwell , derbyshire denis avey.jpg denis avey
 denis avey
denis avey

denis avey -lrb- 11 january 1919 -- 16 july 2015 -rrb- was a british veteran of the second world war who was held as a prisoner of war at a camp adjacent to monowitz .
whilst there he saved the life of jewish prisoner ernst lobethal , by smuggling cigarettes to him .
for this he was made a british hero of the holocaust in 2010 .
he also claimed that he exchanged uniforms with a jewish prisoner to smuggle himself into monowitz to gain information about the treatment of inmates : this claim was challenged .
his memoir `` the man who broke into auschwitz '' written with rob broomby , was published in 2011 .
