BritinBritain
Per Ardua Ad Astra
Another high on the list should be Sergeant Major Charles Coward who saved many lives of concentration camp inmates while he was a POW. He also accidentally recieved an Iron Cross.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coward
Captured during World War II who rescued Jews from Auschwitz.
Coward joined the Army 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 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.
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 chambers. Coward and the other British prisoners smuggled food and other items to the Jewish inmates, even supplying dynamite to the Sonderkommando in a partially successful attempt to blow up the gas chambers and crematoria. 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.
In 1963 Coward was named among the Righteous Among the Nations 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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coward
Captured during World War II who rescued Jews from Auschwitz.
Coward joined the Army 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 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.
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 chambers. Coward and the other British prisoners smuggled food and other items to the Jewish inmates, even supplying dynamite to the Sonderkommando in a partially successful attempt to blow up the gas chambers and crematoria. 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.
In 1963 Coward was named among the Righteous Among the Nations 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.