Hollywood-style Auschwitz escape brazened by Polish 75 yrs ago
June 20 marks the 75th anniversary of one of the most daring escapes from the World War II German Nazi death camp Auschwitz, in which four Polish daredevils fled the camp in a stolen car, disguised as... SS troops.
The four men, Kazimierz Piechowski, Eugeniusz Bendera, Stanislaw Jaster and Jozef Lempart, decided to flee Auschwitz (see: NOTE 1) when Bendera learnt he was designated for the gas chamber.
Bendera shared the news with Piechowski, who worked in the camp's garage. Together they decided to steal the camp commander's car and leave the camp in it dressed in SS uniforms they took from a depot.
Taking advantage of the fact that June 20 1942 was a Saturday and the camp staff was in a weekend mood, the men pretended to be a labour team and as such were allowed to leave the camp's main premises. They proceeded to a nearby equipment depot where they changed into SS uniforms and stile firearms. Bendera then took the best car in the camp's garage, a Steyr 220, and drove up to the depot disguised as an SS officer. He commanded the other three men to get in, and together they drove away from the camp.
The men's escape plans were known to Witold Pilecki (see: NOTE 2), a Polish anti-Nazi resistance fighter and hero of the post-war anti-communist underground who volunteered for the camp to gather material for a report on its atrocities to the Allies known as Witold's Report. At the time Pilecki was one of the leaders of the camp's resistance movement.
The only one of the four escapees not to survive the war was Jaster, killed by the Polish underground in 1943 on erroneous charges of collaborating with the Nazis.
Piechowski is still alive. After his escape he joined the underground Polish Home Army (AK, see: NOTE 3), in whose ranks he fought against the Germans until the end of World War II. In communist Poland he spent 7 years in prison for his AK membership.( PAP)
NOTE 1: The Auschwitz concentration camp was built by the Nazis in 1940 as an incarceration site for Polish nationals, but soon began to receive transports of Jewish descendants from all over Europe. Enlarged by its Birkenau section in 1942, Auschwitz became the main site of the Jewish Holocaust. Nazi Germany killed at least 1.1 million people in the camp, including hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens, in large number of Jewish descent.
The camp's main gate with its prisoner-made Arbeit Macht Frei (work makes free) sign is one of the camp's most recognisable elements.
NOTE 2: Witold Pilecki was a Polish soldier and rotamaster in the pre-war Polish cavalry. In German-occupied Poland he founded the Secret Polish Army resistance group in November 1939, subsequently joining the 1942-formed underground Home Army (AK).
Called "the bravest of the brave" and considered one of the top five war heroes of all time, Pilecki compiled the so-called Witold's Report, the first comprehensive account of proceedings in the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Holocaust.
During World War Two Pilecki volunteered for a resistance operation to get imprisoned in the Auschwitz camp, where he planned to gather intelligence and escape. At Auschwitz Pilecki organized a resistance movement, smuggled food in, consoled co-prisoners and as early as 1941 started informing the Western Allies about Nazi atrocities in the camp.
In the night from April 26 to 27 1943, after 2,5 years of imprisonment, Pilecki and two companions made a daring escape from the Auschwitz camp, whereupon Pilecki got in touch with the Home Army in Krakow (south Poland) and presented a detailed report on horror of mass extermination taking place in Auschwitz. Unfortunately, his plan of freeing the Auschwitz prisoners was not accepted in face of German forces' dominating strength as well as passivity of the Allied side.
Soon Pilecki moved to Warsaw, subsequently serving briefly in a partisan unit in central-south Poland and again returning to Warsaw to work for the underground.
In 1944 Pilecki fought in the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans (see: NOTE 4).
He remained loyal to the London-based Polish exile government after the communist takeover of Poland, and on May 8, 1947 was arrested on charges of working for "foreign imperialism" and after a show trial sentenced to death.
He was executed by a gunshot to the back of the head on 25 May 1948 in the basement of infamous Warsaw Mokotow prison. His body was most probably dumped into a nameless grave and has yet to be found. Information about his activities and fate was suppressed by the Polish communist regime until 1989.
As Pilecki's burial site remains unknown, he is among the communist regime victims whose remains are currently sought in countrywide exhumations by Poland's National Remembrance Institute (IPN).
Witold's Report, considered the world's first comprehensive intelligence on the Holocaust, was presented at the last International Book Fair in London, promoting Poland's "bravest of the brave" among both compatriots (with the support of the Polish Institute and the Polish Social and Cultural Centre), as well as foreigners at the fair in Olympia.
Pilecki was posthumously awarded Poland's highest decoration the Order of the White Eagle by late President Lech Kaczynski, and later promoted to Colonel.
NOTE 3: The Home Army (AK) was the main resistance movement in Poland when it was occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II. It was formed from the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), which in turn evolved from a clandestine organisation called the Polish Victory Service (SZP).
The SZP was launched on the night of Sept. 26, 1939 by a group of senior officers led by Gen. Michal Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski, with the participation of Warsaw Mayor Stefan Starzynski. It became the nucleus of a nationwide resistance movement known as the Polish Underground State.
The Home Army, whose allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile, was one of the largest and best organised resistance movements in Europe, with the total number of fighters put at anywhere from 200,000 to 600,000.
In his book God's Playground. A History of Poland, prominent historian Norman Davies said that "the Home Army could fairly claim to be the largest of European resistance [organisations]".
The so-called Polish Underground State, which operated from 1939 to 1945 and by many was looked up to as a model of conspiracy administration, was subordinated to the Polish government-in-exile, which was first based in France and subsequently in Great Britain. In Poland the government-in-exile had an impressively developed administration with secret courts and prosecutors, underground schools and universities, publishing houses.
The Home Army was the armed wing of the Polish Underground State. Along with various combat activities, the AK was also widely involved in rescuing Jews, among others, by means of the famous 1942-founded Council to Aid Jews (Rada Pomocy Zydom) codenamed 'Zegota' - the only organisation in Europe and a unique one on a global scale established to defend and provide help to Jews in ghettos and elsewhere.
The successive commanders of the AK were generals Stefan Rowecki (until June 30, 1943) Tadeusz Komorowski (until Oct. 2, 1944) and Leopold Okulicki (until Jan. 19, 1945).
The culmination of the AK's armed struggle came with the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. (see: NOTE 4) The AK's wartime losses totalled about 100,000 soldiers killed in fighting or murdered, and about 50,000 taken to the Soviet Union and imprisoned.
In early 1942, the Home Army had about 100,000 soldiers; by the summer of 1944 the number had risen to 380,000. These included 10,800 officers. Poland’s famous Silent Unseen elite special-operations paratroops were also part of the Home Army.
The Home Army's activities did not end with the end of WW II. After 1945 the AK's so-called Enduring Soldiers fought the Soviet regime.
Under communism AK soldiers were persecuted by Poland's authorities, especially during the Stalinist period. Many of them were handed death penalties; others spent many years in prison.
NOTE 4: The Warsaw Uprising broke out on August 1, 1944 as the biggest resistance operation in Nazi-occupied Europe. Initially intended to last several days, it continued for over two months before being suppressed by the Germans. The uprising claimed the lives of 18,000 insurgents and around 200,000 civilians.
After the insurgents surrendered and the remaining 500,000 residents were expelled, the Germans methodically burned down and blew up Warsaw house by house. By January 1945, ap. 90 percent of the buildings and city infrastucture was destroyed.
(PAP)
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