Retro Raunch Revisit

JUN 20, 1942: In one of the most audacious escapes to occur during the Holocaust, Polish prisoner Kazimierz Piechowski and 3 others dressed in SS uniforms, steal a staff car and posing as officers, boldly drive out of Auschwitz -- exactly 2yrs after his arrival. After the German invasion of Poland in Sept 1939, he had tried to flee to France but was captured in Nov trying to cross the Hungarian border. He was sent to a Gestapo prison and forced into a work gang made to clear rubble until he & other deportees were transferred to Auschwitz in Jun 1940. Once there, he was classified as a political prisoner & assigned to bring corpses to the crematorium, and when he saw a list of scheduled executions, this became the catalyst for the escape plan. The 4 men had posed as a work group pulling a freight cart where they went to a motor pool and then a warehouse to change into the uniforms and arm themselves with machineguns & grenades. Once they entered the car (belonging to camp commandant Rudolf Höss), they drove to the main gate where the German-speaking Piechowski in the front passenger seat leaned out of the window for his collar insignia to be seen. He yelled at a guard to open up and the men drove off. The car was found abandonned 37 miles away and having split up, Piechowski first went to the Ukraine but left because of anti-Polish hostility and returned to Poland finding manual labor on a farm. He later made contact with & joined the Polish undergound Home Army. The Nazis arrested his parents in reprisal and they also were sent to Auschwitz where they were murdered. It has been said that the tattooing of prisoners was introduced in response to the escape of the 4. After the the war, Piechowski learned that a security bureau unit from Berlin had arrived at Auschwitz to blast the overseeing administration for how such an incredible breakout by inmates could even be possible. In the post-war years, he attended Gdańsk University, became an engineer and worked in Pomerania but was denounced by Communist authorities for his resistance activities that were deemed anti-Soviet, and again as a political prisoner was sentenced to 10yrs behind bars but only served 7yrs. Viewed by many as a true patriot, after the country's transition to democracy, a humble Piechowski politely declined Poland's highest decoration, the Order of the White Eagle. He modestly said that he felt he didn't deserve the heroic national honor and that while his escape was certainly brave, it didn't merit the distinction of accepting the prestigious award. Quiet til the end, Piechowski died in Dec 2017 aged 98.