Charles Coward
Encyclopedia
Charles Joseph Coward known as the "Count of Auschwitz", was a British soldier captured during World War II
who rescued Jews from Auschwitz and smuggled himself into Auschwitz for one night, subsequently testifying about his experience at the Nuremberg Trials
and the IG Farben Trial
.
in June 1937. He was captured in May 1940 near Calais
while serving with the 8th Reserve Regimental Royal Artillery
as Quartermaster Battery Sergeant Major
. He managed to make two escape attempts before even reaching a prisoner of war camp
, and then made seven further escapes, on one memorable occasion managing to be awarded the Iron Cross
while posing as a wounded soldier in a German Army
field hospital
. When in captivity he was equally troublesome, organising numerous acts of sabotage
while out on work details.
Finally, in December 1943, he was transferred to Auschwitz III (Monowitz) labour camp (Arbeitslager
) only five miles from the better-known extermination camp of Auschwitz II (Birkenau)
. Monowitz was under the direction of the industrial company IG Farben
, who were building a Buna
(synthetic rubber
) and liquid fuel plant there. It housed over 10,000 Jewish slave labourers, as well as POWs
and forced labourers from all over occupied Europe. Coward and other British POWs were housed in sub-camp E715, administered by Stalag VIII-B
.
Thanks to his command of the German language
, Coward was appointed Red Cross
liaison officer for the 1,200-1,400 British prisoners. In this trusted role he was allowed to move fairly freely throughout the camp and often to surrounding towns. He witnessed the arrival of trainloads of Jews to the extermination camp, followed by their 'selection' for either slave labour or the gas chamber
s. Coward and the other British prisoners smuggled food and other items to the Jewish inmates. He also exchanged coded messages with the British authorities via letters to a fictitious Mr. William Orange, giving military information, notes on the conditions of POWs and prisoners in the camps, as well as dates and numbers of the arrival of trainloads of Jews to the extermination camp.
On one occasion a note was smuggled to him from a Jewish-British ship's doctor who was being held in Monowitz. Coward determined to contact him directly and managed to swap clothes with an inmate on a work detail and spent the night in the Jewish camp, seeing at first hand the horrific conditions in which they were held. His experience formed the basis for his subsequent testimonies in post-war legal proceedings.
Determined to do something about it, he used Red Cross supplies, particularly chocolate, to "buy" corpses of dead prisoners, including Belgian
and French
civilian forced labourers, from the SS guards
. Coward then directed healthy Jewish prisoners to join the nightly marches of Jews considered unfit for further work from Monowitz to the Birkenau gas chambers. During the course of the march the healthy men dropped out of procession to hide in ditches; Coward scattered the corpses he had purchased on the road to give the impression that they were members of the column who had died on the march. He then gave the documents and clothes taken from the non-Jewish corpses to the Jewish escapees, who adopted these new identities and were then smuggled out of the camp altogether. Coward carried out this scheme on numerous occasions and is estimated to have saved at least 400 Jewish slave labourers.
In December 1944 Coward was sent back to the main camp of Stalag VIII-B at Lamsdorf (now Łambinowice, Poland) and in January 1945, the POWs were marched under guard
to Bavaria
, where they were eventually liberated.
, describing the conditions inside the Monowitz camp, the treatment of Allied POWs and Jewish prisoners, and the locations of the gas chambers. In 1953 Coward also appeared as a witness in the "Wollheim Suit", when former slave labourer Norbert Wollheim
sued I.G. Farben for his salary and compensation for damages. In January 1955 he joined the Old Comrades No. 4077 of UGLE.
's book). This was adapted into a 1962 film of the same name
starring Dirk Bogarde
. The film was lighthearted compared to the book and made only passing reference to Coward's time at Auschwitz; it concentrated instead on his numerous escapes and added a fictitious romantic liaison.
and had a tree planted in his honour in the Avenue of Righteous Gentiles in Yad Vashem
. In 2003 Coward was further commemorated with the mounting of a blue plaque
at his home at 133 Chichester Road, Edmonton, London
, where he lived from 1945 until his death. The North Middlesex Hospital
has a ward named "Charles Coward" in his honour.
In 2010, Coward was posthumously named a British Hero of the Holocaust
by the British Government.
A fellow inmate of Coward's, Doug Bond, appears to doubt Coward's claim to have smuggled himself into Auschwitz for one night. [Duncan Little 'Allies in Auschwitz' 2009 p. 78]
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
who rescued Jews from Auschwitz and smuggled himself into Auschwitz for one night, subsequently testifying about his experience at the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
and the IG Farben Trial
IG Farben Trial
The United States of America vs. Carl Krauch, et al., also known as the IG Farben Trial, was the sixth of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany after the end of World War II....
.
Biography
Coward joined the ArmyBritish Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
in June 1937. He was captured in May 1940 near Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
while serving with the 8th Reserve Regimental Royal Artillery
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery , is the artillery arm of the British Army. Despite its name, it comprises a number of regiments.-History:...
as Quartermaster Battery Sergeant Major
Company Sergeant Major
A company sergeant major is the senior non-commissioned soldier of a company in the armies of many Commonwealth countries, responsible for standards and discipline. In combat, his prime responsibility is the supply of ammunition to the company...
. He managed to make two escape attempts before even reaching a prisoner of war camp
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
, and then made seven further escapes, on one memorable occasion managing to be awarded the Iron Cross
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....
while posing as a wounded soldier in a German Army
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
field hospital
Field hospital
A field hospital is a large mobile medical unit that temporarily takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent hospital facilities...
. When in captivity he was equally troublesome, organising numerous acts of sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
while out on work details.
Finally, in December 1943, he was transferred to Auschwitz III (Monowitz) labour camp (Arbeitslager
Arbeitslager
Arbeitslager is a German language word which means labor camp.The German government under Nazism used forced labor extensively, starting in the 1930s but most especially during World War II....
) only five miles from the better-known extermination camp of Auschwitz II (Birkenau)
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
. Monowitz was under the direction of the industrial company IG Farben
IG Farben
I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I...
, who were building a Buna
Styrene-butadiene
Styrene-Butadiene or Styrene-Butadiene-Rubber is a synthetic rubber copolymer consisting of styrene and butadiene. It has good abrasion resistance and good aging stability when protected by additives, and is widely used in car tires, where it may be blended with natural rubber...
(synthetic rubber
Synthetic rubber
Synthetic rubber is is any type of artificial elastomer, invariably a polymer. An elastomer is a material with the mechanical property that it can undergo much more elastic deformation under stress than most materials and still return to its previous size without permanent deformation...
) and liquid fuel plant there. It housed over 10,000 Jewish slave labourers, as well as POWs
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
and forced labourers from all over occupied Europe. Coward and other British POWs were housed in sub-camp E715, administered by Stalag VIII-B
Stalag VIII-B
Stalag VIII-B Lamsdorf was a notorious German Army prisoner of war camp, later renumbered Stalag-344, located near the small town of Lamsdorf in Silesia. The camp initially occupied barracks built to house British and French prisoners in World War I...
.
Thanks to his command of the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Coward was appointed Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
liaison officer for the 1,200-1,400 British prisoners. In this trusted role he was allowed to move fairly freely throughout the camp and often to surrounding towns. He witnessed the arrival of trainloads of Jews to the extermination camp, followed by their 'selection' for either slave labour or the gas chamber
Gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...
s. Coward and the other British prisoners smuggled food and other items to the Jewish inmates. He also exchanged coded messages with the British authorities via letters to a fictitious Mr. William Orange, giving military information, notes on the conditions of POWs and prisoners in the camps, as well as dates and numbers of the arrival of trainloads of Jews to the extermination camp.
On one occasion a note was smuggled to him from a Jewish-British ship's doctor who was being held in Monowitz. Coward determined to contact him directly and managed to swap clothes with an inmate on a work detail and spent the night in the Jewish camp, seeing at first hand the horrific conditions in which they were held. His experience formed the basis for his subsequent testimonies in post-war legal proceedings.
Determined to do something about it, he used Red Cross supplies, particularly chocolate, to "buy" corpses of dead prisoners, including Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
civilian forced labourers, from the SS guards
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
. Coward then directed healthy Jewish prisoners to join the nightly marches of Jews considered unfit for further work from Monowitz to the Birkenau gas chambers. During the course of the march the healthy men dropped out of procession to hide in ditches; Coward scattered the corpses he had purchased on the road to give the impression that they were members of the column who had died on the march. He then gave the documents and clothes taken from the non-Jewish corpses to the Jewish escapees, who adopted these new identities and were then smuggled out of the camp altogether. Coward carried out this scheme on numerous occasions and is estimated to have saved at least 400 Jewish slave labourers.
In December 1944 Coward was sent back to the main camp of Stalag VIII-B at Lamsdorf (now Łambinowice, Poland) and in January 1945, the POWs were marched under guard
The March (1945)
"The March" refers to a series of death marches during the final stages of the Second World War in Europe. From a total of 257,000 western Allied prisoners of war held in German military prison camps, over 80,000 POWs were forced to march westward across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany in...
to Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, where they were eventually liberated.
Post war
After the war Coward testified at the Nuremberg War Crimes TrialsNuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
, describing the conditions inside the Monowitz camp, the treatment of Allied POWs and Jewish prisoners, and the locations of the gas chambers. In 1953 Coward also appeared as a witness in the "Wollheim Suit", when former slave labourer Norbert Wollheim
Norbert Wollheim
Norbert Wollheim was a chartered accountant, tax advisor, previously a director of Central Council of the Jews in Germany and a functionary of Jewish organizations....
sued I.G. Farben for his salary and compensation for damages. In January 1955 he joined the Old Comrades No. 4077 of UGLE.
Media
In 1954 John Castle's book, The Password is Courage, describing Coward's wartime activities, was published. It has been through ten editions since, and remains in print. On the back cover of the current edition he is billed as 'The Man who Broke into Auschwitz', (which is also the title of Denis AveyDenis Avey
Denis Avey fought in the desert during the Second World War and was captured and held as a prisoner of war for two years near Auschwitz III, a concentration camp...
's book). This was adapted into a 1962 film of the same name
The Password is Courage
The Password Is Courage is a 1962 World War II film, directed, produced and written by Andrew L. Stone, and starring Dirk Bogarde. The film is a lighthearted take on the true story of Sergeant-Major Charles Coward, and the screenplay is based on the biography of Coward written by John...
starring Dirk Bogarde
Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...
. The film was lighthearted compared to the book and made only passing reference to Coward's time at Auschwitz; it concentrated instead on his numerous escapes and added a fictitious romantic liaison.
Awards
In 1963 Coward was named among the Righteous among the NationsRighteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
and had a tree planted in his honour in the Avenue of Righteous Gentiles in Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
. In 2003 Coward was further commemorated with the mounting of a blue plaque
Blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....
at his home at 133 Chichester Road, Edmonton, London
Edmonton, London
Edmonton is an area in the east of the London Borough of Enfield, England, north-north-east of Charing Cross. It has a long history as a settlement distinct from Enfield.-Location:...
, where he lived from 1945 until his death. The North Middlesex Hospital
North Middlesex Hospital
The North Middlesex University Hospital, known locally as North Mid, is a District General Hospital in Edmonton, in the London Borough of Enfield, within the area served by the Enfield Primary Care NHS Trust.- History :...
has a ward named "Charles Coward" in his honour.
In 2010, Coward was posthumously named a British Hero of the Holocaust
British Hero of the Holocaust
The British Hero of the Holocaust award is a special national award given by the UK government in recognition of British citizens who assisted in rescuing victims of the Holocaust. On 9 March 2010 it was awarded to 25 individuals posthumously, and to two living people, Sir Nicholas Winton aged 100,...
by the British Government.
Counter claims
Since Coward's death his claims have been treated with some scepticism. One major difficulty is that there are no known survivors from Coward's escapees, and it is possible that all were recaptured and killed. When Coward himself was questioned by Yad Vashem researchers in 1962 he offered few details about their identities or fates saying "It is not known exactly how many of these people regained their freedom, because some people went different ways and to different countries." He added: "And naturally no records were kept of them because once they arrived in their new country, special papers were given to them and perhaps different names, etc." The revisionist position is that Coward may have saved a few Jews, but certainly not hundreds.A fellow inmate of Coward's, Doug Bond, appears to doubt Coward's claim to have smuggled himself into Auschwitz for one night. [Duncan Little 'Allies in Auschwitz' 2009 p. 78]
External links
- Coward's Statement and Testimony at the IG Farben Trial
- Photo of Coward at Nuremberg
- Masonic Quarterly Magazine Holocaust: The Count of Auschwitz
- British POWs and Jewish Concentration-Camp Inmates at IG Auschwitz, 1943-1945, Joseph Robert White, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies