Kazimierz Piechowski

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kazimierz Piechowski (1940)

Kazimierz Piechowski [ kaˈʑimjɛʂ pjɛˈxɔfskʲi ] (born October 3, 1919 in Raikau (since 1920 Rajkowy), German Reich ; † December 15, 2017 in Gdańsk , Poland) was a Polish engineer and a Gestapo and concentration camp prisoner during World War II . Together with Stanisław Gustaw Jaster, Józef Lempart and Eugeniusz Bendera, he was one of the four prisoners who managed to escape from the Auschwitz I main camp on June 20, 1942 in stolen SS uniforms . They brought the Pilecki report out of the camp.

biography

Life in World War II

Main gate of Auschwitz I concentration camp

Piechowski was arrested after the German occupation of Poland in World War II while crossing the border into Hungary . Because of his membership in the boy scouts , he was then a Gestapo prisoner in Baligród . On June 20, 1940, Piechowski and 312 other Polish men were taken to the newly established German concentration camp Auschwitz I on the second transport of prisoners from the Generalgouvernement for forced labor . Before that, around 30 German criminals had been brought there as Kapos from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and on June 14th the transport of the 728 from Tarnów had been brought there. Piechowski received the prisoner no. 918.

After his escape from the concentration camp, he went into hiding under an assumed name in 1942 and joined the Polish Home Army in the Underground (AK).

Escape from the concentration camp

Piechowski had been imprisoned in the Auschwitz I main camp since 1940. Since ethnic German farmers had been settled in the vicinity of the camp instead of the Polish population, attempts to escape were made extremely difficult. Even after overcoming the ranks of posts, it was almost impossible for non-residents to take shelter with Polish neighbors near the camp. However, by using an escape vehicle, this belt around the camp could easily be passed.

Steyr 220 car , identical to the escape vehicle

Together with Stanisław Gustaw Jaster, Józef Lempart and Eugeniusz Bendera, Kazimierz Piechowski managed to escape from the concentration camp on June 20, 1942 in stolen SS uniforms. To attempt to escape, they took four SS uniforms and weapons from a warehouse building and drove them out of the camp premises in a stolen SS official vehicle.

One of the refugees, Stanisław Jaster, was carrying a report by the Polish officer Witold Pilecki , who had been smuggled into the camp, about the conditions in the Auschwitz concentration camp, which had been written for the High Command of the Polish Home Army (AK).

Life after World War II

Piechowski studied after the end of the Second World War at the Technical University of Gdańsk (Politechnika Gdańska; Danzig).

documentary

In 2007 Marek Pawłowski staged this escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp and the following life of Kazimierz in a documentary with a few re-enacted scenes. The 45-minute film was released in German in 2009 under the title Die Flucht after an adaptation by Ingrid Terhorst .

Fonts

  • With Eugenia Bożena Kodecka-Kaczynska, Michał Ziokowski: Byłem Numerem: świadectwa Z Auschwitz. Wydawn. Siostr Loretanek, Warsaw, 2003, ISBN 83-7257-122-8
    • I was a number ... Translation: Siegfried Schmidt. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Oświęcim, 2008, ISBN 978-83-60210-74-1
  • My i Niemcy. Wydawn. Sióstr Loretanek, Warsaw, 2008, ISBN 978-83-7257-308-7 (Polish / German)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kazimierz Piechowski: Holocaust survivor who fled Auschwitz died . Spiegel online , December 16, 2017, accessed December 16, 2017.
  2. ↑ Auschwitz Protocols : "The Full-Text of the Vrba Wetzler Report", "The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team" u. a. places
personal data
SURNAME Piechowski, Kazimierz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish concentration camp prisoner and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Raikau , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH 15th December 2017
Place of death Gdańsk