Kazimierz Piechowski (Polish pronunciation: [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 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 3 other prisoners, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, fully armed and in an SS staff car. They drove out the main gate in a stolen automobile, a Steyr 220 belonging to Rudolf Höss.[1]
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After the collapse of Polish resistance to the German invasion, Piechowski along with fellow Scout Alfons "Alki" Kiprowski (prison no. 801) were captured in their hometown of Tczew and impressed into a work gang clearing the destroyed sections of the blown-up bridge over the Vistula, by the German occupiers. 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; as the Polish Boy Scouts were labeled a criminal organization in Occupied Poland. Piechowski was among a transport of 313 Polish deportees to Auschwitz on June 20, 1940, it was the next 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 prison number 918. He credits Kapo Otto Küsel (prison no. 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.
On a Saturday morning on June 20, 1942 Piechowski escaped from Auschwitz I along with two other Poles, Stanislaw Gustaw Jaster (b. 1921: no.6438) veteran of Invasion of Poland in rank of first lieutenant from Warsaw, Józef Lempart (b. 1916; no.3199) a priest from Wadowice, and Ukrainian Eugeniusz Bendera (b. 1906; no. 8502) an auto mechanic from Czortków Ukraine.
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, a work group which consisted of between four and twelve inmates pulling a cart instead of horses.[2]
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. Bendera arrived in Rudolf Höss' Steyr 220. 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, and drove toward the main gate. Jaster carried a report that Witold Pilecki had written for Armia Krajowa headquarters. When they approached the gate they became nervous as it had not opened. Lempart hit Piechowski in the back and said 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. They then drove off.
Kazimierz Piechowski escaped 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 Polish Home Army and took up arms against the Nazis. His parents were arrested as revenge, and died in Auschwitz; the policy of tattooing prisoners was also allegedly introduced in response to his escape.[3] 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, 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." [3] He worked as an engineer for the communist government for some decades.
After the democratic transition, he refused to accept the Order of the White Eagle when Maciej Płażyński tried to award to him. In 1989 he sold land he owned near Gdańsk and travelled with his wife to various parts of the world, visiting over 60 countries. He currently lives in Gdańsk.
Piechowski's kapo Kurt Pachala from Breslau (prisoner no. 24) was tortured and then sent to the standing cell in Block 11 where he died of thirst and hunger on January 14, 1943. 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. [4][5]
Eugeniusz (Gienek) Bendera: He settled in Warsaw after the war and died in the 80's.
Józef Lempart: left the priesthood. His mother was deported to Auschwitz in reprisal for his escape and killed. He married and had a daughter. On May 1, 1971 he died after being run over by a bus, while crossing a street in Wadowice.
Stanisław (Staszek) Jaster: In Warsaw he reported to the Home Army High Command about the resistance in Auschwitz, was a soldier in the Osa and Kosa Home Army units and became a personal emissary of Witold Pilecki. His parents were deported to Auschwitz in reprisal for his escape, where both died. He was accused of collaboration with the Gestapo and executed in 1943 by members of the Home Army.[6]