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Escape on 27 April 1943

ESCAPES FROM AUSCHWITZ

Escape on 27 April 1943

Escape of the Poles Edward Ciesielski, Witold Pilecki and Jan Redzej on 27 April 1943

Source: A-BSMA

Edward Ciesielski, photograph taken in the camp.

Edward Ciesielski was born on 16 November 1922 in Wola Korzeniowa near Szydłowiec. He was involved in underground activity since the first months of the German occupation. In January 1941 he was arrested and on 5 April of the same year deported to Auschwitz. During registration he received number 12969. In the camp he took part in the resistanve movement initiated by Witold Pilecki.

Source: A-BSMA

Witold Pilecki (Tomasz Serafiński), photograph taken in the camp.

Witold Pilecki was born on 13 May 1901 in Olonets at the Lake Ladoga. In 1939, after the defeat of Poland, he co-founded TAP (Secret Polish Army). As some of its members were incarcerated in Auschwitz, Pilecki decided to get into the camp in order to establish contact with them, as well as to initiate the underground activity. On 19 September 1940, he deliberately went out during a street roundup and got arrested; two days later he was transported to Auschwitz. In the camp he was registered under the name Tomasz Serafiński and received number 4859. In October 1940, he founded the Union of Military Organization, which a year later was subordinated to the Union of Armed Struggle. Main tasks of the organization included gathering information about the camp and transferring it to the Home Army Headquarters, as well as preparing the uprising in the camp.

Source: A-BSMA

Jan Redzej (Retko), photograph taken in the camp.

Jan Redzej was born on 24 November 1910 in Wiszniów near Hrubieszów. At the beginning of the German occupation, he got involved in the underground activity in Warsaw. On 21 September 1940 he was arrested in a street roundup and transported to Auschwitz on the same day. He was registered in the camp under the name Jan Retko, which he used in the underground, and received number 5430. In the camp he took part in the underground activity initiated by Witold Pilecki.

In the spring of 1943 Witold Pilecki, sensing the threat of exposure and intending to personally submit a report about the situation in the camp, decided to escape. For this purpose, he got transferred to the Kommando employed in the bakery, situated outside the main camp (about 2 km north). Two other prisoners with whom he intended to escape, Edward Ciesielski and Jan Redzej, also got transferred to the same Kommando.

The escape took place at night, on 26/27 April 1943 directly from the bakery premises. During work, the prisoners managed to cut telephone and alarm ring wires, opened the door with a bump key and moved away bolts locking the door. A continuation they left the building immediately, barricaded the exit from the outside and ran towards east. That night they also managed to cross the Soła river, swam across the Vistula river and reached nearby forest in a boat found by accident. After the entire day of rest they carried on the march and finally crossed the border of the General Government. After a few days, they got to Nowy Wiśnicz near Bochnia, where they established contact with the regional Headquarters of the Home Army. Pilecki suggested the creation of a unit which would attack the SS garrison in Auschwitz and liberate the prisoners. However, the command of the Home Army expressed a negative opinion, considering the suggestion as not realistic enough. In August 1943 Pilecki visited Warsaw, where in the Headquarters of the Home Army he presented a report about the underground activity and the situation of prisoners in the camp. Soon after Redzej and Ciesielski arrived at Warsaw as well. All three of them got engaged in the clandestine activity and in 1944 fought in the Warsaw Uprising. Redzej perished during the Uprising, but the rest survived the war. However, they were sentenced by the Communist government in Poland to death. Pilecki was executed in 1948, while for Ciesielski, his sentence was commuted into life imprisonment and then into 15 years.

Source: NARA, public domain

The breakout of Edward Ciesielski, Witold Pilecki and Jan Redzej. The route they walked from the camp to the bakery is marked in red. The green colour represents the course of their escape (dotted line marks probable direction). Aerial photograph taken by the Allied reconnaissance aircraft, 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

Telegram sent from Auschwitz on 27 April 1943 informing about the escape of prisoners Thomas Serafinski (Witold Pilecki) and Johann Retko (Jan Redzej).

Source: A-BSMA

Telegram sent from Auschwitz on 27 April 1943 informing about the escape of prisoner Edward Ciesielski.

Source: A-BSMA

The card of Johann Retko (Jan Redzej) in Ziechenau (Ciechanów) Gestapo records after his breakout from Auschwitz.

Source: A-BSMA

The card of Thomas Serafinski (Witold Pilecki) in Ziechenau (Ciechanów) Gestapo records after his breakout from Auschwitz.

Source: A-BSMA

The card of Edward Ciesielski in Ziechenau (Ciechanów) Gestapo records after his escape from Auschwitz.

Source: A-BSM Collections

The portrait of Tomasz Serafiński (Witold Pilecki) made in the camp by the prisoner Stanisław Gutkiewicz, 1942.

Witold’s Report, Witold Pilecki – Tomasz Serafiński, edited by Adam Cyra, Society for the Protection of Auschwitz, Bulletin No. 12, 1991, pp. 109‒110, 111.

It’s 6:30 p.m. An SS man shouts from the gate: Bäckerei... [Bakery]. We run out. … They are counting us. There are as many of us as there should be—eight. … We are surrounded by four SS men. We are leaving. We have passed the gate. I have been passing it so many times, thinking: “Maybe there will come the time when I won’t have to be coming back through it”. Today I am leaving thinking that I c a n n o t g o b a c k t h e r e e v e r a g a i n.

It is impossible to describe the attitude. All in all, the confidence in our total determination gave us wings. In the town we divided into two groups. Two prisoners and two SS men went to the small bakery and we—six of us with two SS men—went to the bigger one (that was arranged with the Kapo previously). …

During a night shift five baking rounds need to be done. We worked hard—except for Edward Ciesielski who already at the beginning of the shift “played” an accident with a sack and a dislocation (he complained of backache). All of us could not, however, pretend.

We were supposed to try our luck after the first or second session of baking. But the second, the third, the fourth have passed—and we were not able to move. It was all hindered by the fact that on Monday, guards were always changed. And it was Monday. At the end of the week, they had already got used to the workers and the naps and were almost always “flaccid”. On Mondays—the new ones— “the new broom”. And what is more, when we were still at the gate leaving the Lager, they were clearly told: “Pass auf” [Watch them]. I thought: “Are they suspecting something?” In the bakery one of them got “glued” to “our” door, watching it closely and saying that they look suspicious. Jan Redzej had to use his influence to convince him.

When Monday passed and Tuesday started at 12:00, the situation became more favourable (only one of the guards was awake, the other was snoring), but still quite difficult. …

When Edward Ciesielski decisively and quite aptly “operated on” the phone and Jan Redzej unlocked door bolts and unscrewed the nut, pushing the hook joining two door halves together from the outside and was giving me signs to support the door together with our shoulders and pry it, then one of the guards came to the door to check it. Observing the entire situation at the distance of a few steps, I was waiting for him to scream. Why didn’t he notice the unlocked bolt, cut cable and Jan Redzej dressed to hit the road, who pretended to be in the toilet, it would remain a mystery to me forever (he must have been thinking about it the next day in the bunker, too).

The moment of response, at last. I run towards Jan Redzej, at the same time Edward Ciesielski closes the other door for a moment, covering our activity for the guard standing six steps away. We press the door quickly and firmly with Jan Redzej, even harder, and finally they open quietly and instantly for us at the same time.

We see the stars, with pleasant chill on our faces. A jump and we rush with our clothes under our arms. … I left at night—as I arrived—so I remained in this hell for nine hundred forty seven days and nights. It was already after 2 a.m., so the high time for escape. …

Edward Ciesielski, Wspomnienia oświęcimskie [Memoirs from Auschwitz], Wydawnictwo Literackie, Cracow 1968, pp. 124‒125.

Several attempts to push the door made by Tomek and Jaś did not bring any result. I suddenly felt feverish. Sweat drops appeared on my forehead. What if the door would not open? I heard Tomek whisper: “Let’s push it again as hard as possible, the three of us! We leant against the door with our arms. On Jaś’s order—hoop!—we pushed as hard as we could. There was a slight rasp and it opened with a crack.

I ran outside, it was fresh and humid, and rushed ahead with abandon. Tomek ordered: “Stop!” and I woke up. Now we had to lock the SS men in the bakery. We closed the door and quickly and chaotically locked it with wheelbarrows, logs of wood, stones, and posts. It lasted only a few seconds. Then we quickly walked away from the bakery. We popped into black night. It was raining. I breathed fresh air. We started walking in the ditch along the road, we walked faster and faster, and finally we started to run. We reached the embankment of narrow-gauge railway. Rails intended for platform cars were assembled there, for transporting gravel, sand and stones.

Now we were running on the embankment. It is difficult to describe what I felt at the time. I was free, but it seemed to me that I just could not keep the balance. We were running one behind the other without exchanging a single word. Following the rails, we reached the bushes behind which the Soła river was flowing with a hum. We stopped by the river.

Jaś tore camp numbers off the vest and trousers. He threw them into the river. I took off my striped uniform and threw it into the current, too. Tomek did the same thing. …

Suddenly, a series of machine gun shots broke the silence. Our SS men from the bakery were probably shooting in order to alert the main guard house. Jaś started laughing in a nervous manner. Tomek warned us that we have to be wary. The SS men may shoot with rockets and lighten the whole area up with them. They may spot us. We decided to take some rest in the bushes. The shooting died away. We were again surrounded by silence, filled with raindrops.

Source: A-BSMA

Jan Redzej, Witold Pilecki and Edward Ciesielski in Nowy Wiśnicz, summer of 1943.