IRENA SENDLER POLAND ACTIVISTS SAVED 2500 CHILDRENS FROM DEATH CAMP DURING WORLD WAR II

IRENA SENDLER POLAND ACTIVISTS SAVED 2500 CHILDRENS FROM DEATH CAMP

DURING WORLD WAR II

Irena Sendler
(Poland)
Irena Sendler

Irena Sendler meeting with Polish youth movement members, Warsaw, 1990s
Irena Sendler's daughter and granddaughter next to the tree planted in her honor, Yad Vashem, 2010
The tree planted in honor of Irena Sendler. Yad Vashem, 2012
When World War II broke out, Irena Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker, employed by the Welfare Department of the Warsaw municipality. After the German occupation, the department continued to take care of the great number of poor and dispossessed people in the city. Irena Sendler took

advantage of her job in order to help the Jews, however this became practically impossible once the ghetto was sealed off in November 1940. Close to 400,000 people had been driven into the small area that had been allocated to the ghetto, and their situation soon deteriorated. The poor hygienic conditions in the crowded ghetto, the lack of food and medical supplies resulted in epidemics and high death rates. Irena Sendler, at great personal danger, devised means to get into the ghetto and help the dying Jews. She managed to obtain a permit from the municipality that enabled her to enter the ghetto to inspect the sanitary conditions. Once inside the ghetto, she established contact with activists of the Jewish welfare organization and began to help them. She helped smuggle Jews out of the ghetto to the Aryan side and helped set up hiding places for them.

When the Council for Aid to Jews (Zegota) was established, Sendler became one of its main activists. The Council was created in fall 1942, after 280,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka. When it began to function towards the end of the year, most of the Jews of Warsaw had been killed. But it played a crucial role in the rescue of a large number who had survived the massive deportations. The organization took care of thousands of Jews who were trying to survive in hiding, seeking hiding places, and paying for the upkeep and medical care.

In September 1943, four months after the Warsaw ghetto was completely destroyed, Sendler was appointed director of Zegota’s Department for the Care of Jewish Children. Sendler, whose underground name was Jolanta, exploited her contacts with orphanages and institutes for abandoned children, to send Jewish children there. Many of the children were sent to the Rodzina Marii (Family of Mary) Orphanage in Warsaw, and to religious institutions run by nuns in nearby Chotomów, and in Turkowice, near Lublin. The exact number of children saved by Sendler and her partners is unknown.

On 20 October 1943, Sendler was arrested. She managed to stash away incriminating evidence such as the coded addresses of children in the care of Zegota and large sums of money to pay to those who helped Jews. She was sentenced to death and sent to the infamous Pawiak prison, but underground activists managed to bribe officials to release her. Her close encounter with death did not deter her from continuing her activity. After her release in February 1944, even though she knew that the authorities were keeping an eye on her, Sendler continued her underground activities. Because of the danger she had to go into hiding. The necessities of her clandestine life prevented her from attending her mother's funeral.

On October 19, 1965, Yad Vashem recognized Irena Sendler as Righteous Among the Nations. The tree planted in her honor stands at the entrance to the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Irena Sendler: An Angel in Disguise

by Gabriella Sison from San Diego, California in United States

Children during the Holocaustjewishmag.comImagine being a small Jewish child during the Holocaust, unsure what the next hour held. Fearing of the thought that tomorrow will never come. Hope seems grim until, Irena Sendler rescues children from this situation. Irena Sendler was a Polish social worker who risked her life because she saved more than 2000 children during the time of World War II. She was the head of the children's section of the council for aid to Jews. This opportunity made her know the terrible conditions inside the ghetto and she tried to help the people who suffered there and provided them with their needs. A hero must possess dauntlessness and selflessness. He/She is someone who walks voluntarily into the unknown and always prioritizes other people's needs and does not ask for anything in return. Irena Sendler is considered a hero because of her compassion for other people. She put her life in danger to help those children get away from the horrors of the Holocaust. This courageous act of hers restored faith in humanity. It showed that there was still kindness in society's atrocious ways.

            Sendler has made a huge mark in history when she exhibited heroism by saving those children from the Holocaust. Instead of just sitting back, she stepped right in to helping those children who were on the verge of dying. " Irena Sendler smuggled them out of the Warsaw ghetto and gave them false identities." (Daily Mail ).  Irena made over 3,000 false documents that gave Jewish families new identities, which also stated that they were Gentiles. She risked her life by infiltrating the camp. She smuggled the children out from the ghetto because German authorities began mass deportations wherein Jews would be used as slaves in concentration camps. Sendler suffered great pain when she was captured. "Sendler refused divulgin any information and the Nazis never succeeded in abolishing their organization." (PR Newswire). Irena Sendler joined a Polish resistance movement called "Zegota". Unfortunately, she was arrested and betrayed by Gestapo on October 1943. Despite having been brutally tortured, she never said anything to the Nazis. Because of Sendler's bravery and heroic act, not only did she save the children from the gates of hell, that is the Holocaust; She was able to give them back the right to live in full color.

Irena Sendlerexpress.co.ukSendler was a noble hero by making sure the children she was rescuing had a future ahead of them. She put the children's lives first than her own."Her first act of defiance involved helping Jews and opponents of the Nazi Regime flee to safety." (Newsmakers). Sendler brought in food and medical supplies for the Jews. Her municipal-government pass gave her access to go through heavily armed checkpoints. Irena wanted the children to have a normal life, so she kept information about them and hid it until the war was over. "If you see someone drowning, you must jump in to save them whether you can swim or not." (lowellmilkcenter.org). This was spoken by her father to her when she was only 7 years old. This shows that even when Irena was just a child, she was taught of having compassion for other people. Irena wanted the children to live a protected and ordinary life because during those times if a Nazi found out that they were a Jew they would be shot on the spot or they would be sent to concentration camps, either of which will get them killed. Despite the difficult situation their country was in, Irena still wanted to evacuate those children from the Holocaust, no matter what the cost.

            Her boldness to unchain the children from the Holocaust shows her empathy for them. This deed showed that the world can still be a better place, if there is love, kindness, and humility.  According to Mahatma Gandhi, " Bravery is not a quality of the body. It is of the soul." The bravery and kindness of Irena Sendler in that devastating situation gave people, specially Jewish children, the hope to get a glimpse of a brighter tomorrow.  She was a selfless person who put herself in other people's shoes to see where they were coming from. Irena entered into a situation that was life-threatening yet she was still committed to helping the Jews.

The savior of Warsawirenasendler.org            We think of Irena Sendler like we think of someone we owe our life to. Her act of courageousness served as a beacon of light to the world, and it brought hope in restoring the benevolence in mankind. As Irena Sendler once said,  "People can only be divided into good or bad; Their race, religion, nationality don't matter."

Works Cited

"Irena Sendler." Newsmakers, vol. 2, Gale, 2009. Biography In Context,             https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/K1618004894/BIC?u=powa9245&sid=BIC&xid=10e a57c4. Accessed 27 Mar. 2018. 

  “Meet Unsung Hero Irena Sendler.” Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes, 11 June 2014,             lowellmilkencenter.org/irena-sendler/.                                            

"PBS Premieres Unknown WWII Story of Polish Catholic Women Who Risked Their Lives to    Save Thousands of Jewish Children." PR Newswire, 28 Apr. 2011. Biography In Context,             https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A255008022/BIC?u=powa9245&sid=BIC&xid=55e8 b71a. Accessed 27 Mar. 2018.                  

 "Saviour of 2,500 children dies at 98." Daily Mail [London, England], 13 May 2008, p. 37.         Biography In Context,      https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A178961887/BIC?u=powa9245&sid=BIC&xid=04a7 749a. Accessed 27 Mar. 2018.

The Long Path to Irena Sendler - Mother of the Holocaust Children  [1]

Joachim Wieler, University of Applied Sciences Erfurt

Irena Sendler in her room in a Catholic Convent in Warsaw

“All real life is encounter.” This saying by Martin Buber is not only a challenge to us as social workers. Yesterday afternoon, while meeting with Irena Sendler, this remarkable 95 year old woman in her small but cozy and comfortable room in the frost-bitten capital of Poland, I understood Buber’s words more than ever before. But let me go back a little.

During one of the planning meetings for the upcoming 50th Jubilee and the 18th World Congress of IFSW 2006 in Munich, Germany, we were discussing possible highlights for this big event. We were also discussing outstanding personalities, professional models in the development of social work. This was the first time, that our Secretary General, Tom Johannesen, mentioned Irena Sendler and the story of the „Schindler that nobody knew” and that had surfaced in Kansas/USA. I had not heard of her and I have to admit that I was a bit sceptical - not about Irena Sendler herself and the courageous acts that distinguish her and others from mainstream followers of criminal regimes in trying times. But I had lived in the Midwest for several years and I could hardly believe that teenagers and their teacher in rural Kansas would bring such overwhelming publicity to one of the most remarkable – but almost repressed and forgotten! – rescue operations during the Holocaust, saving 2,500 children from the heavily guarded Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw, Poland.

With great interest, I read fascinating reports in the internet, and I suggest to all of my colleagues to read them carefully and be prepared for further documentation. And as it turned out, I was not the only sceptical one in the process of this overdue discovery:

„…In the fall of 1999, Mr. Conard encouraged four students to work on a year long National History Day project which would among other things; extend the boundaries of the classroom to families in the community, contribute to history learning, teach respect and tolerance, and meet our classroom motto, ‘He who changes one person, changes the world entire.’

Three ninth grade girls, Megan Stuart, Elizabeth Chambers, and Jessica Shelton, and an eleventh grade girl, Sabrina Coons, accepted the challenge and dedicated to enter their project in the National History Day program. Mr. Conard showed them a short clipping from a March 1994 issue of News and World Report, which said,’Irena Sendler saved 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942-43’. He told the girls the article might be a typographical error, since he had not heard of this woman or story…” (Internet: http://www.irenasendler.org: The Project – See also: www.dzieciholocaustu.org: Concerning Irena Sendlerowa).

So I contacted one of my former professors at Kansas University who himself had been a child in the Warsaw Ghetto and who had earlier told me his own story of suffering and surviving not only the Warsaw Ghetto, but Majdanek, Budzyn, Auschwitz and the Death Marches at the end of WW II (Wieler, Zeller 1995: Emigrierte Sozialarbeit). I asked him what he knew about this new discovery. His prompt answer:

“Dear Joachim, it was good to hear from you.

Thank you for your interest in the Irena Sendler saga. The best way to find out all about her work is: 1. Check out the internet… 2. go to Google and enter: ‘Life In a Jar’. If you need any further help e-mail me or contact Norm Conard and the students.

I am delighted that IFSW is considering honoring her and presenting her work at next year’s meeting in Muenchen. I support this wholeheartedly. I have seen the “Life in a Jar” presentation and was most impressed with it, even though it’s quite simply performed. But it had tremendous impact. The audience loved it. It is hard to believe that it took 60 years for her story to come to the world’s attention. It is even harder to believe that it took a group of Christian Junior High School students in a rural area of Kansas (with virtually no Jewish population) to discover this. I was in the Warsaw Ghetto for six months prior to its total destruction and I never heard about Irena Sendler – the fact is that I never heard about her organization – Zegota. ... – Warm regards, Lou”.

This brought me into contact with Norm Conard and the project in Kansas, with the Association of ‘The Children of the Holocaust” in Poland, the Polish Association of Social Workers and with the Maximilian Kolbe Foundation in Freiburg, Germany. I found out that Irena Sendler has been bestowed with the highest honor in Poland, the Order of the White Eagle and that she is an honorary citizen of Israeland that she had received other honors. A Polish biography has been written about Irena Sendler recently (Anna Mieszkowska: Matka Dzieci Holocaustu – Historia Ireny Sendlerowej, Muza Warszawa, 2004). English and German versions will follow very soon. I will not write too much in the context of this first rather short visit. But before her detailed biography appears, I want to recite a few facts from the mentioned website, not necessarily in the same order:

Irena was born on February 15, 1910, and grew up in the town of Otwock in Poland. Her grandfather led a rebellion against the Czars. Her father was a doctor…and died in the typhus epidemic of 1917 while caring for poor Jewish people in Otwock. Irena was an only child. She had a son and a daughter. Irena Sendlerowa is a Polish Catholic woman who rescued 2,500 Jewish children in Poland during World War II. She talked Jewish parents and grandparents out of their children, rightly saying that all were going to die in the Ghetto or in death camps, taking the children past the Nazi guards …and then adopting them into the homes of Polish families or hiding them in convents and orphanages. She made lists of the children’s real names and put the lists in jars, then buried the jars in the garden, so that someday she could dig up the jars and find the children to tell them about their true identity. As early as 1939, when the Germans invaded Warsaw, Irena began helping Jews by offering them food and shelter. When the Warsaw Ghetto was erected in 1940, Irena could no longer help isolated Jews. The Ghetto enclosed 16 square blocks of the city and 450,000 Jewish people were forced into this area. Irena used her papers as a Polish social worker and papers of the workers of the Contagious Disease Department (as part of the underground Zegota) to enter the Warsaw Ghetto. To show her solidarity with the Polish people, she put on the mandatory Star of David armband on her right arm when entering the Ghetto. She was not only very active in saving Jewish children but also in resistance against the Germans.

Irena first rescued the orphan children from inside the Ghetto. She used the old courthouse at the edge of the Warsaw Ghetto (still standing) as one of the main routes of smuggling children out…Irena and the ten who went with her into the Ghetto, used many, many methods to smuggle children out. There were five main means of escape: 1- using an ambulance a child could be taken out hidden under a stretcher. 2- escape through the courthouse. 3- a child could be taken out using the sewer pipes or other secret underground passages. 4 - a trolley could carry out children hiding in a sack, in a trunk, a suitcase or something similar. 5- if a child could pretend to be sick or was actually ill, it could be legally removed using the ambulance.

Irena (code name Jolanta) was arrested on October 20, 1943 …and placed in the notorious Pawiak prison, were she was constantly questioned and tortured. During the questioning she had her legs and feet broken. She received a death sentence. She was to be shot. Unknown to her, Zegota had bribed the German executioner who helped her escape.

During the remaining years of the war, she lived hidden, just like the children she rescued. Irena was the only one who knew where the children were to be found. When the war was finally over, she dug up the bottles and began the job of finding the children and trying to find a living parent. Almost all the parents of the children Irena saved, died at Treblinka death camp ( www.irenasendler.org ).

We know now that the end of the war was not the end of the ordeal. During the struggles between the Polish government in exile and at home on one hand and the communist regime throughout Europe on the other, Irena Sendler was again persecuted for having cooperated with Zegota and the Polish government in exile. She was again sentenced to death but saved by a Jewish woman. Her life and her courageous deeds had to be hidden or at least kept at very low profile until the threat of serious repercussion finally diminished during the past few years.

After establishing contacts and finding out some of the above facts, IFSW gave me the „green light” to travel to Poland for a visit with Irena Sendler. My mission was to find out if she would like to be honored as a very special social worker of the International Federation of Social Workers. The official announcement and celebration has tentatively been set for this summer in Munich. Finally, after negotiations concerning time, locality, health and translation etc., I took the train from Weimar via Berlin to Warsaw during one of the coldest nights this winter. In contrast, the visit with Irena Sendler was one of the warmest and most pleasant personal as well as professional encounters I have ever experienced.

A co-worker of the Association “The Children of the Holocaust” in Poland, Mrs. Ewa Chalasinska, offered to translate for us and took me to small home for the elderly which is part of a Catholic Convent near the Old Town of Warsaw. It is very quiet there and a medical center as part of the convent is very convenient in terms of health care.

Mrs. Sendler met with us when others take their afternoon nap. She greeted us in her small but very comfortable room and a young woman who takes care of her much of the time stayed with us and participated in the interaction. Mrs. Sendler sat in an armchair next to the window with a view of a garden and part of the convent. In spite of her advanced age and her position tucked in her chair, she appeared to me to be very lively and agile, with an extremely friendly and open face – and particularly sparkling eyes! Her hair is rather short and very light. A black head band, fitting with her black dress, made her look elegant and rather youthful. When she spoke in a firm steady voice, she always paused often so that everything could be fully and clearly translated. She was prepared for our visit, she was very present and after the usual introductions and warming up, she asked rather direct questions. I will highlight some of them:

„To be sure”, Mrs. Sendler began our exchange regarding our central theme, „I am the only person still alive of that rescuing group but I want everyone to know that, while I was coordinating our efforts, we were about twenty to twenty five people. I did not do it alone.”

She wanted to know: Why do we (the International Federation of Social Workers) want her as an honorary social worker or member? My answer can be taken from some of the above comments: We would like not only for her to be remembered for what she did but we also would like to have her as a sort of professional role model. As advocates for our clients who are in difficult situations we need to support them and we may have to take sides, and that will sometimes take us to our limits. „Your example, Mrs. Sendler, will hopefully help us not only to make the wisest and most life-saving decisions but to stand the test when external pressure comes on. You have demonstrated that it can be done under very extreme pressure. You have set a most admirable example for us.”

„So, what do you and the international organisation want me to do concretely and in the future?” My answer: „I think that you have done such important deeds in the past and in your long life that we do not want to burden you with additional tasks and chores, so to speak. But if you would join us with your great example in our daily efforts, that will help us to make wise decisions and be congruent with our social work values.”

„Yes, but tell me something about your values and the work of IFSW.” I could not possibly rattle off everything that is summed up in our official definition of social work, the ethical paper and the various policy papers etc. I did not know how much she knew about our organization. So I handed her some information about IFSW, the upcoming congress and began to give her some general information from the website of IFSW:

“The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) is a global organisation striving for social justice, human rights and social development through the development of social work, best practices and international cooperation between social workers and their professional organisations.” And “The International Federation of Social Workers recognises that social work originates variously from humanitarian, religious and democratic ideals and philosophies; and that it has universal application to meet human needs arising from personal-societal interactions, and to develop human potential…” ( www.ifsw.org )

Soon, I had the feeling that she was not so interested in my general proclamations. She told me that she “sometimes wondered why there is so much fuss about ‘heroic acts’. It is something that came rather naturally as a result of my early upbringing and education. When you know that something is basically at stake, like real life, you do everything to save it. You don’t talk about it and discuss it. You do it. – Once a journalist asked me if I would have saved only Jewish children. I found this to be a strange question. How do you feel about that?” „Well”, I replied, „I feel the same way – very strange! But I have not been in such an extreme situation. Yet, I wonder how someone can distinguish between children or even adults.” I also added my sincerely felt apology for the brutality that was inflicted on her by people from Germany, people of my parents’ generation. Irena Sendler slowly nodded her head.

Then we went into social work connections during the time before and during the German occupation of Poland. I asked: „Did you know and have you by any chance had any connections with with Helena Radlinska, the director of the first school of social work in Poland?” – „Oh yes, I have. But I did not go to that school. When I was employed in an organisation that helped unemployed people, the school of social work sent us students for practical experience. Mrs. Radlinska was Jewish and later was hidden in a nunnery by the Ursuline Sisters. Helena Radlinska was not only the founder and director of the first school of social work but she more or less created a new profession of social work in Poland.” So we quickly found connections with Alice Salomon and other pioneers of social work in Europe and worldwide.

Towards the end of our visit, I asked her again (and at this time also for the camera), if she would accept our invitation to be honored by our International Federation of Social Workers. Without hesitation and with a whole-hearted and beaming smile she said: „TAK!” – which is YES in Polish. She asked me to come close to her. She gave me a tight squeeze with still amazingly strong arms. She kissed me on the forehead and I had to restrain myself not to reciprocate with a very spontaneous crushing bear hug.

When I took the subway back to my longstanding friends in Ursynow in the southern outskirts of Warszawa, I felt so elated and happy that I almost levitated and continued my flight on a magic carpet. It is probably no co-incidence that on the same evening, there was a fascinating TV-documentary on Irena Sendler and the group of young people including their teacher who are doing their very best to give Irena Sendler her own voice again and the recognition that she truly deserves.

Of course, this was my only short and very touching encounter with her. Some of the more notorious and significant historical questions still remain unanswered and will challenge us in the long run. They will hopefully keep us moving in the unending quest to face our past so that we do not have to repeat it.

Why has it taken so long and why is it still so difficult to face historical facts without being afraid of losing face or condemming one’s country? I am not certain if I should say this again, certainly not as a justification of what happened more than 60 years ago. But as a German – with my rather heavy historical rucksack which I bear whether I want it or not! – I apologized to Irena Sendler for the pain and general suffering that the German war machinery plus its machinists and indifferent followers have inflicted on her. My Polish friends added from their side that it remains an important question why she was sentenced to death during the communist takeover and why the rescue operation altogether was kept so quiet even in Poland for such a long time. It is a good sign that the Irena Sendler saga has finally surfaced, but why was it impossible for so many years? And more importantly: What can we learn from the experience?

Another recurring question is: How can we, as social workers, get more involved in prevention and in really and truly „intelligent designs” and not primarily play the role of fire fighting, a function that we know so well? Why do we usually learn more about wars and warriors than peace and peacekeepers?

This was an extremely moving encounter with a real pacifist who has saved so many lives. But she has also suffered severely for her strong convictions. Through her entire life and particularly during the most trying times she remained true to herself and to mankind. And she still has one of the brightest and most encouraging smiles that I have ever seen. I am very grateful that I found and met with Irena Sendler. She gave me her blessings and I pass them on to our international organisation and to all social workers in the world.

Irena Sendler is a not only a professional role model for every social worker but a courageous and loving woman that everyone should know!

Warsaw and Krakow, January 2006, Joachim Wieler (these reflections were jotted down, on the Holocaust Day – the liberation of Auschwitz – very timely!)

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[1] The title of a Polish biography (Anna Mieszkowska: Matka Dzieci Holocaustu, Warzawa , MUZA 2005) on Irena Sendler ( published also in German: Anna Mieszkowska: Die Mutter der Holocaust-Kinder, München, DVA 2006) who was also introduced as “the Schindler that nobody knew”.

I visited her on behalf of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) at the end of January 2006 in Warszawa, Poland.

Author´s Address:
Prof Dr Joachim Wieler
University of Applied Science Erfurt
Department of Social Studies
Altonaer Str. 25
D-99084 Erfurt
Germany
Tel: ++49 361 6700 676
Email: wieler@soz.fh-erfurt.de

Kazimierz Piechowski WHO ESCAPED FROM AUSWITCH DEATH CAMP ON 1942 JUNE 20- 1919,october 3- 2017,December 15

Kazimierz Piechowski WHO ESCAPED FROM 
AUSWITCH DEATH CAMP ON 1942 JUNE 20
born 1919,october 3- 2017,December 15

June 20,1942 கசிமிய்ர்சு பைச்சோவ்ஸ்கி மற்றும் மூவர் SS-Totenkopfverbände காவலர்களாக உடையணிந்து auswitch வதைமுகாமில் இருந்து தப்பிச் சென்றனர்.

20 ஜூலை 1940 இல் ஆஸ்விட்ஸிற்கு 313 போலந்து பிரஜைகள் கொண்டு வந்து சேர்க்கப்பட்டனர் அதில் பைசோவ்ஸ்கியும் ஒருவர் 
நம்பர் 918 .Piechowski பைசோவ்ஸ்கி , சடலங்களை கொண்டு வருவதற்காக முகாமில் நியமிக்கப்பட்டார், சுட்டு கொல்லப்படும் சடலங்களை சிறு வண்டியில் போட்டு தகனம் அல்லது புதைகுழிக்கு கொண்டு செல்லும் வேலை

வரவிருக்கும் மரணதண்டனை பட்டியலில் , அவரது நண்பர் யூஜெனியஸ் பெண்டேராவை கொலை செய்யப் போவதாகக் கண்டார். எனவே இருவரும் மற்றும் இன்னும் ஒருவரும் தப்பிக்கும் திட்டத்தை செயல் படுத்த திட்டமிட்டனர்

பைசோவ்ஸ்கி ஆசுஸ்விட்ஸ் இலிருந்து யூஜெனியஸ் பெண்டரா 8502 ,ஜோசப் லெமர்ஸ்பர் 3419 ,ஸ்டானிஸ்லா குஸ்டா ஜஸ்டர் 6438 உடன் தப்பினார் .அத்துடன் கார்சோகோவிலிருந்து ஒரு கார் மெக்கானிக் .

ஜூன் 20 ,1942 சனிக்கிழமை சீருடைகள் மற்றும் ஆயுதங்களைக் கொண்ட அறைக்குள் நுழைந்து, நான்கு இயந்திர துப்பாக்கிகள் மற்றும் எட்டு கையெறி கவசங்கள் எடுத்துக்கொண்டனர் .அத்துடன் உயர் பதவி அலுவலர் உபயோகிக்கும் கார் Steyr 220 ஒன்றையும் திருடினார்

அவர் கட்டிடத்தில் நுழைந்து மற்றவர்களைப் போல SS சீருடை மாற்றினார். அவர்கள் அனைவரும் கார் உள்ளே நுழைந்தனர்: Bendera ஓட்டுநர்; முன் பயணிகள் இருக்கைகளில் பைசோவ்ஸ்கி; பின்னால் லேமர் மற்றும் ஜஸ்டர். பெண்டரா பிரதான வாயிலுக்கு சென்றது.

கேட்டில் செக்கூரிட்டிக்காக கார் நிறுத்தப்பட்டவுடன் காரிலிருந்து இறங்கி தன்னுடைய ரேங்க் உடுப்பை காட்டி கதவை திறக்க சொன்னார் .கதவை திறந்ததும் நால்வரும் தப்பி விட்டனர்

திருடிய காரை அறுபது கிலோமீட்டர் தூரத்தில் கைவிட்டு , போலியான பெயர் ,போலி பாஸ்போர்ட்டில் பைசோவ்ஸ்கி
போலந்தில் வசித்தார் . பின்னர் ரஷ்ய வீரரிடம் பிடிபட்டு3 ஆண்டுகளில் விடுதலை ஆனார் .

இன்றும் உயிரோடு இருக்கிறார்

Kazimierz Piechowski (pronounced [kaˈʑimjɛʂ pjɛˈxɔfskʲi]; born October 3, 1919 Rajkowy, Poland) is a retired engineer, a Boy Scout during the Second Polish Republic, a political prisoner of the German Nazis at Auschwitz concentration camp, a soldier in the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) then a prisoner for seven years of the communist government of Poland. He is known for his famous escape from Auschwitz I along with three other prisoners dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, fully armed in a stolen SS staff car, in which they drove out the main gate—"a universally acclaimed... [feat] of exceptional courage and gallantry", in the words of Kazimierz Smoleń.[1]

After the collapse of Polish resistance to the German invasion, Piechowski along with fellow boy scout Alfons "Alki" Kiprowski (b. 9 October 1921[2]) were captured by the German occupiers in their hometown of Tczew and impressed into a work gang clearing the destroyed sections of the railway bridge over the Vistula, which had previously been blown up by the Polish military to impede Nazi transports. Polish Boy Scouts were among the groups targeted by the Gestapo and the Selbstschutz. They decided to leave Tczew on November 12, 1939 and attempted to get to France to join the free Polish Army. While crossing the border into Hungary they were caught by a German patrol. They were first sent to a Gestapo prison in Baligrod. They were told by the Gestapo "Actually, we should shoot you, but we have for you something much more interesting." They were sent to a prison in Sanok next, then to Montelupich Prison in Kraków. Their last stop before Auschwitz was a prison in Wiśnicz.

Piechowski was sent to Auschwitz as a political prisoner, the so-called Legionsgaenger, one wishing to join Polish military formations—or "legions"—abroad.[3] Moreover, the Polish Boy Scouts were labeled a criminal organization in Occupied Poland. Piechowski was among a transport of 313 Polish deportees to Auschwitz on 20 June 1940: it was only the second transport after the initial one from Tarnów. Among this Tarnów group was another Pole who would escape in an SS uniform: Edward Galinski. Galinski's escape was short-lived.

Piechowski received inmate number 918. He credits Kapo Otto Küsel (inmate number 2)—one of the original 30 German deportees from Sachsenhausen—with his survival by assigning him lighter work. Piechowski was in the Leichenkommando, assigned to bringing corpses to the crematorium, including those shot at the "Black Wall" by SS-Rapportfuhrer Gerhard Arno Palitzsch. Piechowski was present when Polish priest and fellow Auschwitz prisoner Maximilian Kolbe offered to exchange places with a fellow Pole who was among a group of ten sentenced to be starved to death. The sentence was in retribution for a perceived escape attempt of a prisoner.

Steyr 220, similar to car used in the escape

He also had access to the list of upcoming executions, and when he checked it once he saw that his friend, Eugeniusz Bendera, was going to be executed. So both of them and 1 more man planned an escape plan. So on Saturday morning of 20 June 1942 told his camp leader along with his two inmates, that they were assigned to throw away the waste. Later they decided to go to a storage closet, grab three German uniforms, and escape.

On the Saturday morning of 20 June 1942, exactly two years after his arrival, Piechowski escaped from Auschwitz I along with two other Poles, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster (b. 1921; inmate number 6438), veteran of Invasion of Poland in rank of first lieutenant from Warsaw; Józef Lempart (b. 1916; inmate number 3419), a priest from Wadowice; and Eugeniusz Bendera (b. 1906; inmate number 8502), an auto mechanic from Czortków, now Ukraine. Piechowski had the best knowledge of the German language within the group, and held the command of the party.[4]

They left through the main Auschwitz camp through the Arbeit Macht Frei gate. They had taken a cart and passed themselves off as a Rollwagenkommando—"haulage detail"—a work group which consisted of between four and twelve inmates pulling a freight cart instead of horses.[5]

Bendera went to the motorpool; Piechowski, Lempart, and Jaster went to the warehouse in which the uniforms and weapons were stored. They entered via a coal bunker which Piechowski had helped fill. He had removed a bolt from the lid so it wouldn't self latch when closed.

Once in the building they broke into the room containing the uniforms and weapons, arming themselves with four machine-guns and eight grenades.[6] Bendera arrived in a Steyr 220 sedan (saloon) car belonging to SS-Hauptsturmführer Paul Kreuzmann,[7] license number SS-20868.[8] As a mechanic he was often allowed to test drive cars around the camp.

He entered the building and changed into SS uniform like the others. They then all entered the car: Bendera driving; Piechowski in the front passenger seat; Lempart and Jaster in the back. Bendera drove toward the main gate. Jaster carried a report that Witold Pilecki (deliberately imprisoned in Auschwitz to prepare intelligence about the Holocaust and who would not escape until 1943) had written for Armia Krajowa's headquarters. When they approached the gate they became nervous as it had not opened. Lempart hit Piechowski in the back and told him to do something. With the car stopped, he opened the door and leaned out enough for the guard to see his rank insignia and yelled at him to open the gate. The gate opened and the four drove off.

After the escape[edit]

Flag of the Armia Krajowa

The prisoners abandoned the stolen escape vehicle in the vicinity of Maków Podhalański, at a distance of some 60 kilometres (37 mi) from the camp.[9] Kazimierz Piechowski eventually made his way to Ukraine, but was unable to find refuge there due to anti-Polish sentiment. Forging documents and a false name, he returned to Poland to live in Tczew, where he had been captured. He soon found work doing manual labor on a nearby farm, where he made contact with the Home Army and took up arms against the Nazis within the units of 2nd Lt. Adam Kusz nom de guerre Garbaty (one of the so-called "Cursed soldiers").[10] His parents were arrested by the Nazis in reprisal for his escape, and died in Auschwitz; the policy of tattooing prisoners was also allegedly introduced in response to his escape.[11] Piechowski learned after the War from his boy-scout friend Alfons Kiprowski, who remained a prisoner at Auschwitz for some three more months after his escape, that a special investigative commission arrived at Auschwitz from Berlin to answer—independently of the camp's administration—the question as to how an escape as audacious as Piechowski's and his companions' was at all possible.[12]

After the war he attended the Gdańsk University of Technology and became an engineer, and then found work in Pomerania. He was denounced to the communist authorities for being a member of the Home Army and sentenced to 10 years in prison; he served 7. At the end of his sentence, he was 33; he reports thinking, "They have taken away my whole youth—all my young years."[11] Thereafter he worked as an engineer for the communist government for some decades.

After the democratic transition, he declined the Order of the White Eagle when Maciej Płażyński tried to award it to him, politely (but also enigmatically) replying, "I do not feel that this honour is owed to me".[13] In 1989 he sold land he owned near Gdańsk and travelled with his wife to various parts of the world, visiting over 60 countries. In 2006 Piechowski was named an honorary citizen of the city of Tczew with which he has had a longstanding association (as his pre-War hometown).[14] Likewise in 2006 Kazimierz Piechowski was the subject of the 56-minute-long documentary film Uciekinier ("Man on the Run") produced by Marek Tomasz Pawłowski and Małgorzata Walczak, which won several international awards.[15] In 2009 the British singer Katy Carr released a song about Piechowski under the title "Kommander's Car"; while 2010 saw another documentary on the subject from the filmmaker Hannah Lovell, the 26-minute Kazik and the Kommander's Car.[16] He currently lives in Gdańsk.

Piechowski's associates[edit]
The kapo Kurt Pachala (or, Pachele; born 16 October 1895), a native of Neusatz[disambiguation needed] (inmate number 24), in charge of the motor pool (Fahrbereitschaft; or alternatively, of the food stores or supply depot, the so-called Truppen Wirtschaftslager) at Auschwitz, was implicated in Piechowski's escape by the circumstantial evidence uncovered during the ensuing investigation, and as a result was tortured and then sent to the standing cell in Block 11 where he died of thirst and hunger on 14 January 1943.[17][18] He is said to have been reduced at the end to eating his own shoes.[19] His treatment and death were recounted at the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials in 1965 which formed the basis for the 1965 play Die Ermittlung (The Investigation) by Peter Weiss.[20][21] Pachala is the only known victim of reprisals for the escape within the Auschwitz concentration camp itself (apart, that is, from the family members of the escapees): it was the ruse of the fake work commando that saved other prisoners from reprisals.[22]
Eugeniusz (Gienek) Bendera (b. 13 or 14 March 1906 in Tschortkau (Polish: Czortków), Podolia), then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.[23] According to Kazimierz Piechowski, Bendera was the originator of the idea of the escape, and the one who conceptualized the whole plan.[22] After the War he returned to Przedbórz to live with his wife (married in 1930; one son), until a divorce in 1959 when he moved to Warsaw. He died after 1970.[24]
Józef Lempart (born 19 August 1916 in Zawadka): After the escape he was dropped off by the escapees at a monastery in Stary Sącz, a locality some 155 kilometres (96 mi) from the camp, in a state of total exhaustion.[25] His mother was deported to Auschwitz in reprisal for his escape and killed. He left the priesthood, married, and had a daughter. He died in 1971 after being run over by a bus while crossing a street in Wadowice.[12]
Stanisław (Staszek) Gustaw Jaster, nom de guerre Hel (b. 1 January 1921): The youngest of the escapees. In Auschwitz was a member of the secret underground military organization ZOW. In Warsaw he reported to the Home Army High Command about the resistance in Auschwitz and became a personal emissary of Witold Pilecki. His parents were deported to Auschwitz in reprisal for his escape, where both died (his father, Stanisław Jaster, b. 1892, having perished at Auschwitz on 3 December 1942; his mother, Eugenia Jaster, b. 1894, first deported to the Majdanek concentration camp, eventually perished at Auschwitz on 26 July 1943).[26] He continued to fight against the German occupiers in the ranks of the Home Army as a member of one of its most important special-operations units, the Organizacja Specjalnych Akcji Bojowych (Osa–Kosa 30), but also at his own initiative taking part in engagements staged by other Home Army units, most notably participating in the successful action at the Celestynów railway junction on the night of 19 May 1943, carried out under the command of Captain Mieczysław Kurkowski nom de guerre Mietek, whose object was to free the prisoners being transported by the Nazis from the Lublin Castle prison to the Auschwitz concentration camp by train, when he gained special distinction through an act of bravery whereby he virtually single-handedly assured a victorious outcome for the operation in which 49 prisoners were freed.[26][27] His comrades-in-arms have described him as a man "of enormous stature invested with extraordinary physical power".[28]
According to the account first promulgated in a 1968 book by Aleksander Kunicki, Cichy front,[29] Jaster was accused of collaboration with the Gestapo and executed in 1943 by members of the Home Army.[30] This account has since been discredited as lacking foundation in documentary evidence. What now appears to be reasonably certain is that Jaster was rearrested by the Gestapo in Warsaw on 12 July 1943, and that he perished sometime between July and September of that year.[31] The exact circumstances of his death remain however a bone of contention. Both Eugeniusz Bendera and Kazimierz Piechowski himself ― as well as many others who knew him personally ― made their voices heard in an effort to exonerate the memory of Jaster in the wake of the controversy engendered by the publication of Cichy front.[32] It has been pointed out that the author of the accusing book, Aleksander Kunicki (1898–1986), an intelligence officer of the Home Army during the War (see Operation Kutschera), had himself been subsequently accused of having collaborated with the Gestapo and sentenced to death, only to have his conviction set aside by the authorities of the Communist Poland (who instead awarded him a state pension for "meritorious service to the nation" — an extraordinary outcome for an operative of the Home Army, a military arm of the Polish government in London, whose members were persecuted after the War by Communists either with lengthy imprisonments (as in the case of Kazimierz Piechowski himself) or by being killed, as in the case of Witold Pilecki, a figure directly connected with the events dealt with in the present article, Gen. Emil Fieldorf, and others).[33] Kunicki's book was submitted to a closely reasoned and devastating critique by Tomasz Strzembosz in 1971, which uncovered (among its other weaknesses) deliberate selective concealments and falsifications of published sources which Kunicki invokes in support of his thesis.[34]
In the slowly emerging consensus of opinion in the matter — while the uncorroborated allegations of Aleksander Kunicki presented as "facts" in Cichy front remain what they are, namely allegations, unsubstantiated, in parts fanciful, and (in the light of emerging facts about Kunicki himself) perhaps self-serving — the book is thought nevertheless to contain an element of truth concerning Jaster's ultimate fate. It would appear that after his second arrest by the Gestapo in Warsaw on 12 July 1943 Jaster may have managed to escape yet again (this time by jumping out of a speeding Gestapo car moments after having been seized in a street together with a high-ranking Home Army commander, Mieczysław Kudelski nom de guerre Wiktor) — a feat so unprecedented (both in the degree of bravura displayed and in the fact that it would have been the second time that Jaster managed to extricate himself from Nazi clutches) that it would have aroused suspicions among the Home Army just then plagued by a series of devastating setbacks which could only have been caused by a well-placed mole, leading to a hasty and unjust execution of Jaster. If this hypothesis as to the fate of Jaster were to be accepted as a fact, it would remain to be explained why no documents relating to the case have come to light, however.
The authors of the aforementioned award-winning 2006 documentary film about Kazimierz Piechowski, Uciekinier ("Man on the Run"), Marek Tomasz Pawłowski and Małgorzata Walczak, are currently working on a sequel centred on the person of Stanisław Gustaw Jaster.[35]
Alfons "Alki" Kiprowski (born 9 October 1921 in Świecie), Piechowski's fellow boy scout, was separately deported to Auschwitz (inmate number 801). He would escape from Auschwitz independently from Piechowski, just 94 days later, on 22 September 1942, together with two other prisoners, Piotr Jaglicz (b. 29 June 1922; inmate number unknown) and Adam Szumlak (b. 16 June 1920; inmate number E-1957 [or EH-19

KAZIMIERZ PIECHOWSKI , WITH OTHERS ESCAPED FROM AUSCHWITZ DEATH CAMP

KAZIMIERZ PIECHOWSKI ,
WITH OTHERS ESCAPED FROM AUSCHWITZ 
DEATH CAMP

I escaped from Auschwitz

Kazimierz Piechowski is one of just 144 prisoners to have broken out of the notorious Nazi camp and survive. Today aged 91, he tells his extraordinary story

 Kazimierz Piechowski, 2011

 Kazimierz Piechowski in 2011. 'We just planned that I would play the role of an SS officer so well that the guards would believe me.' Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi for the Guardian
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On 20 June 1942, the SS guard stationed at the exit to Auschwitz was frightened. In front of him was the car of Rudolph Höss, the commandant of the infamous concentration camp. Inside were four armed SS men, one of whom – an Untersturmführer, or second lieutenant, was shouting and swearing at him.

"Wake up, you buggers!" the officer screamed in German. "Open up or I'll open you up!" Terrified, the guard scrambled to raise the barrier, allowing the powerful motor to pass through and drive away.

Yet had he looked closer, the guard would have noticed something strange: the men were sweating and ashen-faced with fear. For far from being Nazis, the men were Polish prisoners in stolen uniforms and a misappropriated car, who had just made one of the most audacious escapes in the history of Auschwitz. And the architect of the plot, the second lieutenant, was a boy scout, to whom the association's motto "Be prepared" had become a lifeline.

Almost 70 years later, prisoner 918 is holding forth in the home of the scouting association, Baden Powell House in London. At 91, he is impeccably dressed, with a face as wrinkle-free as his well-ironed shirt. As he accepts the ceremonial neckerchief from a shy girl scout from Lancashire, he is as straight-backed as any of the teenagers on parade. In the UK as the guest of a British singer, Katy Carr, who has written a song about his experiences, he is thrilled when the scouts and guides join her to sing for him. Yet in between the traditional trappings of a jamboree, Kazimierz Piechowski, or Kazik as he likes to be called, will tell them a story few in the UK have heard –

 how, during Nazi occupation, scouts their age were murdered in the streets, while others like him were sent to concentration camps to witness the horror of Hitler's Final Solution.

Piechowski had a happy childhood in the town of Tczew, swimming with friends in the nearby river Vistula or playing with bows and arrows in the park with his two brothers. His family were middle class and his father worked on the railways. When he was 10, Piechowski decided to join the scouts – an act that would alter his life for ever. The youth association was flourishing in Poland, a newly independent state set up after the first world war, with a strong focus on patriotism, "toughness" and brotherhood. "I joined because I was patriotic," he remembers. "And when I arrived home, my mother was crying a little bit and said to me: 'I am so happy you are on the right way.'"

When the Nazis invaded the country nine years later, in 1939, the scouting movement was seen by the invaders as a symbol of nationalism – and a potential source of resistance. "I was 19 when the war broke out," Piechowski says. "Four days after Germany declared war, they arrived in Tczew. 

They started shooting the scouts." Among those rounded up and killed were Piechowski's childhood friends, and the teenager was terrified. "I knew that, sooner or later, I would also be killed," he says, "so I decided to run away."

He tried to flee across the Hungarian border, a route used by other scouts making their way to France to fight in the Free Polish forces there, only to be caught at the crossing. After eight months in various prisons he was sent to Auschwitz.

"We were only the second transportation to the camp," Piechowski says, "and we had to help build it." The old collection of buildings that made up the original concentration camp was not big enough to house all those caught in mass arrests, so inmates were forced to work 12- to 15-hour days to construct a new camp next door that would become notorious as the Nazis' biggest death camp.

"For the first three months, we were all in complete shock," says Piechowski. And it just got worse. From June 1940 and all through the first six months of 1941, the SS were keen to kill inmates – beating them to death with batons – as the simplest way to cope with the camp's overcrowding. 

Today, the starvation, unimaginable brutality and physical labour that made the concentration camp a living hell are well documented. But the details of Piechowski's memories still have the power to shock. Inmates were each given a spoon and a tin bowl – not just to eat and drink from, but also to urinate in at night. "If you lost your spoon, you ate from the bowl like a dog," he says quietly. "If you lost your bowl, that was it; you did not get any soup."

Sometimes the guards would murder just to get a holiday, he says. "When an SS man was bored, they would take off a prisoner's cap and throw it away. They would then order the prisoner to fetch it. As the prisoner was running, the officer would shoot them. Then they would claim the prisoner was trying to escape and get three days off for foiling it."

How did people cope? "Some prayed, but some who had prayed before they arrived would say: 'There cannot be a God if Auschwitz exists.'"

For six weeks, Piechowski was set to work carrying corpses after executions. "The death wall was between blocks 10 and 11. They would line prisoners up and shoot them in the back of the head." At the end there would be a pile of naked corpses and Piechowski would take the ankles, while another man held the arms, and throw them on to carts, to transport them to the crematorium. "Sometimes it was 20 a day, sometimes it was a hundred, sometimes it was more. Men, women and children." He looks at me fiercely. "And children," he repeats.

Yet he did not think of trying to escape until a friend's name appeared on a death list. Like many of the boy scouts in Auschwitz, Piechowski joined the resistance movement in the camp. As many of the scouts spoke German, they found useful positions – some were even among the prison police and were able to access the prisoners' files. One day, a Ukrainian friend, Eugeniusz Bendera, a gifted mechanic who worked in the camp's garage, came to him. "He had been told by those who had access to his documents that he was going to be murdered. I was devastated," Piechowski says. The germ of an escape plan formed.



"He said he could organise a car, but that was not enough." The men were being held in the main camp, Auschwitz I, where the fences were covered in electrified barbed wire and there were guards every few metres. The escapees would have to make it through the infamous Arbeit macht frei gate (the legend meant "Work sets you free"), and also break out of the outer perimeter of the complex.

Yet Piechowski could not dismiss his friend's plea. "When I thought that they would put Gienek [Bendera] against the wall of death and shoot him, I had to start thinking." It helped that Piechowski was now working in the store block, where the guards' uniforms and ammunition were kept. Slowly an idea took shape. But holding him back were the consequences for other prisoners. "In the speech the deputy commandant gave when a new transport came in, he would say: 'If anyone thinks of doing something stupid like escaping, let them know this: we will kill 10 people for each person who escapes from a work group or [housing] block.' It was like a cup of cold water hurled over my head."

So that the Nazis would not hold their real working group responsible, Piechowski and Bendera formed a fake group of four, recruiting another boy scout, Stanislaw Gustaw Jaster, and priest Józef Lempart for their "spectacular escape".

On 20 June 1942 – two years to the day after Bendera entered Auschwitz – the conspirators met in the attic of a half-built block to run through the escape plan for the last time. It was a Saturday, when work stopped at midday and the store rooms and motor pool would be unmanned. Before they left they said a prayer for their families, and agreed that if the attempt failed they would shoot themselves. "What was really encouraging us and pushing us on was that if we did not do this Gienek would be killed. "Until the last moment we weren't sure. But we said: 'We have to do this, we have to believe.'"

Picking up a rubbish cart containing kitchen waste, the four started walking towards the Arbeit macht frei gate. Here Piechowski told the guard he was part of a squad taking the rubbish away, praying the guard would not check to see if they were registered. Their luck held and they were able to walk freely out of the main camp and towards the store block. How did it feel? "I did not think about anything," Piechowski says. "I was just trying to pass this final examination. From that moment we did not only need courage, but intelligence."

At the stores, three of them made their way to trap doors covering chutes to the coal cellars. That morning while at work, Piechowski had unscrewed a bolt keeping the doors locked so they could climb in. They made their way to the second-floor store room, broke down the door and dressed themselves in officers' uniforms. Meanwhile, Bendera got into the garage with a copied key and brought round the car.

The mechanic had picked the Steyr 220 – the fastest car in Auschwitz, there for the sole use of the commandant. "It had to be fast, because he had to be able to get to Berlin in a few hours. We took it because if we were chased we had to be able to get away."

They drove to the main gate – passing SS men who saluted them and shouted Heil Hitler. But for Piechowski, the biggest test was still to come. "There was still one problem: we did not know whether, when we came to the final barrier, we would need a pass. We just planned that I would play the role of an SS officer so well that the guards would believe me."

Yet as they approached the barrier, the guard did not move. As he describes what happens next, Piechowski looks away as though he can see the last obstacle before him. "We are driving towards the final barrier, but it is closed . . . We have 80m to go, it is still closed . . . We have 60m to go and it is still closed. I look at my friend Gienek – he has sweat on his brow and his face is white and nervous. We have 20m to go and it is still closed . . ." Bendera stopped the car and as Piechowski stared blankly ahead, not knowing what to do, he felt a blow on his shoulder. It was Lempart. "He whispered: 'Kazik, do something.'

"This was the most dramatic moment. I started shouting." The SS guards obeyed and the car drove to freedom – allowing the men to become four of only 144 prisoners to successfully escape Auschwitz.

The Nazis were incensed, says Piechowski. "When the commandant heard in Berlin that four prisoners had escaped he asked: 'How the bloody hell could they escape in my own car, in our own uniforms, and with our ammunition?' They could not believe that people they did not think had any intelligence took them [for a ride]."

Keeping away from the main roads to evade capture, they drove on forest roads for two hours, heading for the town of Wadowice. There they abandoned the Steyr and continued on foot, sleeping in the forest and taking turns to keep watch. Lempart became ill and was left with a parish priest, while Jaster returned to Warsaw. Piechowski and Bendera spent time in Ukraine before Piechowski returned to Poland, joining the partisan Polish Home Army and spending the rest of the war fighting the Nazis.

In revenge, Jaster's parents were arrested and died in Auschwitz, and there were serious consequences for the remaining prisoners. "A month after we escaped, an order went out that every person must be tattooed [with their prison number]. The Nazis knew that an escapee's hair would grow back, and that the partisans would make new documents for them. But when people saw the number, they would know that they were from Auschwitz. No other camp used numbering – it was our escape that led to it."

Although they were never recaptured, Piechowski relived his time in the camp in flashbacks and nightmares. And his problems were not over. When Poland became a communist state in 1947, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for joining the Home Army, serving seven. "When I finally came out of prison I was 33 years old. I thought, 'They have taken away my whole youth – all my young years.'"

Later, he became an engineer and when the communist regime fell in 1989, he took to travelling the world with his wife, Iga. He has written two books about his experiences, and tries to ensure no one will forget what happened in Auschwitz. Does he mind reliving his terrifying past? "I am a scout so I have to do my duty – and be cheerful and merry. And I will be a scout to the end of my life," he says simply.

Additional reporting Christina Zaba

For details of Katy Carr's 'Escapologist Tour', which will include screenings of the short documentary Kazik and the Kommander's Car, visit katycarr.com