How Do You Escape Auschwitz When Ten Men Die for You?

On 20 June 1942 four prisoners drove out of Auschwitz in SS uniforms and stopped twenty meters short of a barrier that stayed down. Their plan was built so that no ten men would die for their escape. This film asks who paid instead. Kazimierz Piechowski (prisoner no. 918), Eugeniusz Bendera, Józef Lempart and Stanisław Jaster did not trick the famous gate with a password. By their own testimonies they walked out of it on foot as a work detail that existed only on paper, broke into the SS supply depot, put on SS uniforms and drove a Steyr 220 to the outer barrier, where Piechowski showed his insignia and shouted. By the museum's count, 928 prisoners tried to leave the camp complex and 196 made it. The film follows the cost outside the fence: Jaster's parents, Lempart's mother, the German kapo Kurt Pachala, and Jaster himself, who carried Witold Pilecki's report to Warsaw and was called a traitor for decades. On the WHO PAID? cover Jaster's name appears twice because his father Stanisław and his mother Eugenia were both arrested in Warsaw on 21 June 1942, the day after the escape, and both died in Auschwitz. The ten-men rule is Piechowski's memory of a speech by the deputy camp commander Karl Fritzsch; the museum documents the practice in 1941. Bendera says the car was not the commandant's. The link between the escape and Pachala's death rests on Piechowski's account. In this film: Kazimierz Piechowski · Eugeniusz Bendera · Stanisław Gustaw Jaster · Józef Lempart · Witold Pilecki · SS-Hauptsturmführer Paul Kreutzmann · Kurt Pachala · Home Army (Armia Krajowa) · Auschwitz (Auschwitz I main camp, Oświęcim) · Block 11 (Death Block), Auschwitz I · Maków Podhalański · Tczew · 20 June 1942 CHAPTERS 0:00 The barrier that stayed down 3:39 Ten for one 6:18 A name on a list 9:08 A work detail that did not exist 11:43 Foreman nine hundred eighteen, and three 15:08 Under the watchtower 17:36 Rank, not a password 20:01 Free, and lost 22:29 Who paid 26:15 Courier or traitor 28:48 Prisoner nine hundred eighteen, again 32:25 The procedure LINKS Escape on 20 June 1942 (Auschwitz Museum online lesson) https://lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_15_uc... Escapes and reports (Auschwitz Museum) https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/... SOURCES Escape on 20 June 1942 (online lesson "Escapes", with testimony excerpts) — Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Testimony of Kazimierz Piechowski, Testimonies Fonds vol. 154 — Archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Testimony of Józef Lempart, Testimonies Fonds vol. 4 — Archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Testimony of Eugeniusz Bendera, Testimonies Fonds vol. 27 — Archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Report "W" KL Auschwitz 1940–1943 — Captain Witold Pilecki (written 1945; Pilecki Project / IPN ed. 2023) "Uciec przeznaczeniu" — interview with Kazimierz Piechowski by Maciej Foks, Pamięć.pl (2012) Testimony of Józef Kral, 1st Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial — Fritz Bauer Institut (1964) CREDITS Bundesarchiv, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, cropped: Bild 101I-133-0703-10 / Zermin (a barrier at the Litzmannstadt ghetto, 1941) · Bild 121-0336 / photographer not named (a control post, Kraków, 1939); posts of the same kind, not Auschwitz Via Wikimedia Commons, shown as places and objects today, not as 1942: Dnalor 01, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT · Diether, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Dr. Bernd Gross, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bahnfrend, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Oleg Yunakov, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Assassin3577, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Davejblair, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wojciech Domagała, CC BY-SA 3.0 PL · Jorge Láscar, CC BY 2.0 · Michał Bulsa, CC0 Maps via Wikimedia Commons: Lonio17 / Poeticbent, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Walké / Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa), CC BY-SA 3.0 · Thomas Maierhofer · Dominique Natanson · AGAD Aerial photographs, NARA 305897 (60 Sqn SAAF), NARA 305911, NARA 305914 and a view courtesy USHMM Photo Archives, public domain: taken in 1944-45, after the escape; they show the camp area and the Monowitz works, not June 1942 Public domain: Wilson44691 · Alf van Beem · Raduz · Henryk Poddębski · Narcyz Witczak-Witaczyński · Armemuseum · Stanisław Jaster, unknown photographer, "Stolica" 1987 · Witold Pilecki, unknown, IPN archive · Nowy Kurier Warszawski, 27 June 1942, via Zawadzka, Rossman, Zośka (1991) reproduction · letter envelope, scanned by Radzuweit · NSDAP Organisationsbuch 1936, via Internet Archive · unknown authors Documents: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum archive (A-BSMA), the commandant's telegram and the duty officer's book, set from the museum's published text Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... — tracks: "Aftermath", "Anguish", "Clean Soul", "Dark Walk", "Deep Haze", "Lightless Dawn", "Long Note Four", "Long Note One", "Long Note Three", "Long Note Two", "Unanswered Questions" #Auschwitz #KazimierzPiechowski #WorldWar2