Auschwitz escapee funeral takes place in Warsaw

photo - PAP Grzegorz Jakubowski

August Kowalczyk died on 29 July at the age of 90, at a hospice which he helped to establish in the town of Oświęcim near the site of the German Nazi death camp.

He was sent to Auschwitz in December 1940, as a boy of 19 years old.

He escaped after a year and a half with eight other prisoners and survived thanks to a farmer’s family which sheltered him in the attic of their house for seven weeks.
Kowalczyk subsequently travelled under false documents to Silesia and Kraków and became a soldier of the underground Home Army.

After the war, August Kowalczyk developed a successful career as an actor and theatre director, serving, among others, as artistic director of the Polski Theatre in Warsaw from 1968 to 1981.

Having retired from the stage and screen, he devoted all his time and energy to pass the knowledge about his war-time experience to the young generation.
He had recounted his personal story in over 5,000 schools across Poland, saying that it was his obligation as a witness.

August Kowalczyk was one of 667 prisoners of Auschwitz who made attempts to escape from the camp.

Only one hundred of them were successful in their attempts. All of them – thanks to the help from by the inhabitants of the villages in the vicinity of the camp. It was a part of August Kowalczyk’s mission to build a hospice in the town of Oswiecim as a sign of gratitude to these people.

In 2005, August Kowalczyk shared his war-time testimonies in a BBC documentary ‘Holocaust: a Music Memorial from Auschwitz’, broadcast on the 60th anniversary of the camp’s liberation.

Listen to our audio report, with comments by Paweł Sawicki from the Auschwitz Memorial Museum. (mk)