Hero or hoax? The man who broke into Auschwitz – or maybe didn’t

Denis Avey's publishers plan changes to new editions of bestseller as researcher raises alarm

It started with an extraordinary tale of wartime bravery and led to the publication of a bestselling account, The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz, and to a BBC documentary. Then the difficult questions began. Were the heroic exploits of Denis Avey really all they seemed? Was his dramatic claim he had swapped places with a man inside a concentration camp possibly a fake?

In spite of growing doubts, Avey's story that he saved the life of a Jewish prisoner by placing himself in danger while he was being held in a prisoner-of-war sub-camp near Auschwitz is still in popular currency.