{{Short description|British POW who saved over 400 Jews from Auschwitz}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}} {{Infobox military person | name = Charles Joseph Coward | image = coward-bogarde.jpg | caption = Coward on the set of ''The Password Is Courage'' with Dirk Bogarde, who played him in the film | birth_date = {{birth date|1905|1|30}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVCR-MBKZ|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20161101102721/https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVCR-MBKZ|url-status=dead|title=FamilySearch.org|website=FamilySearch |archivedate=1 November 2016}}</ref> | death_date = {{Death date and age|1976|12|21|1905|1|30}} | burial_label = Place of burial | place ofburial = | birth_place = | death_place = | burial_coordinates = <!-- {{Coord|LAT|LONG|display=inline,title}} --> | nickname = | allegiance = {{UK}} | branch = British Army | service_years = 1937 to 1945 | rank = Warrant Officer Class II (Battery Sergeant Major) | unit = | commands = | battles = Second World War | awards = | relations = | other_work = }} {{Righteous Among the Nations}} '''Charles Joseph Coward''' (30 January 1905 – 21 December 1976), known as the "Count of Auschwitz", was a British soldier captured during the Second World War who rescued Jews from Auschwitz and claimed he had smuggled himself into the camp for one night, subsequently testifying about his experience at the IG Farben Trial at Nuremberg. He also smuggled at least several hundred Jewish prisoners out of concentration camps.
==Biography== Coward joined the Army in June 1924 and was captured in May 1940 near Calais while serving with the 8th Reserve Regimental Royal Artillery as BQMS, Battery Quartermaster Sergeant. He managed to make two escape attempts before even reaching a prisoner of war camp, 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.<ref>Castle, John (1954). The Password is Courage. London: Souvenir Press.</ref> When in captivity he was equally troublesome to his captors, arranging several acts of sabotage while out on work details.
Finally in December 1943 he was transferred to the Auschwitz III (Monowitz) labour camp (''Arbeitslager''), situated 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.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/e715_lager_fuer_britische_kriegsgefangene |title=E715 – Camp for British Prisoners of War |work=wollheim-memorial.de |year=2011 |accessdate=11 March 2011}}</ref>
Thanks to his command of the German language, Coward was appointed Red Cross liaison officer for the 1,200–1,400 British prisoners.<ref name=NMT604>Nuernberg Military Tribunal, Volume VIII, p. 604</ref> In this trusted role he was allowed to move fairly freely throughout the camp and often to surrounding towns.<ref name=NMT605>Nuernberg Military Tribunal, Volume VIII, p. 605</ref> He witnessed the arrival of trainloads of Jews to the extermination camp. Coward and 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 (Code for the War Office), giving military information, notes on the conditions of POWs and the other prisoners in the camps, as well as dates and numbers of the arrival of trainloads of Jews.<ref name=NMT605/>
On one occasion a note was smuggled to him from a Jewish-British ship's doctor, who was being held in Monowitz.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/Karel_Sperber_19101957 |title=Karel Sperber (1910–1957) |work=wollheim-memorial.de |year=2011 |accessdate=11 March 2011}}</ref> Coward determined to contact him directly. He 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 these Jewish people were held.<ref name=NMT604/> He failed to find the individual, later found to be Karel Sperber – see below. This experience formed the basis of his subsequent testimony in post-war legal proceedings.
Determined to do something about it, Coward used Red Cross supplies, particularly chocolate, to "buy" from the SS guards corpses of dead prisoners, including Belgian and French civilian forced labourers.<ref name=Gilbert>{{cite news |last=Gilbert |first=Martin |work=The Guardian |date=22 January 2006 |title=Salute those unsung heroes of the Holocaust |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/22/secondworldwar.comment |accessdate=24 December 2010 }}</ref> 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.<ref name=Gilbert/> Coward carried out this scheme on numerous occasions and is estimated to have saved at least 400 Jewish slave labourers.<ref name=Gilbert/>
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.<ref name="wollheim-CJC">{{cite web |url= http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/charles_joseph_coward_19051976 |title=Charles Joseph Coward (1905–1976) |work=wollheim-memorial.de |year=2011 |accessdate=11 March 2011}}</ref>
===Post-war=== After the war Coward testified at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, describing the conditions inside the Monowitz camp, the treatment of Allied POWs and Jewish prisoners and the locations of the gas chambers.<ref name=NMT>Nuernberg Military Tribunal, Volume VIII, pp. 603–616</ref> In 1953, Coward also appeared as a witness in the "Wollheim Suit", when former slave labourer Norbert Wollheim sued IG Farben for his salary and compensation for damages.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/britische_kriegsgefangene_als_zeugen_im_wollheimprozess_1952_2 |title=British Prisoners of War as Witnesses in the Wollheim Suit |work=wollheim-memorial.de |year=2011 |accessdate=11 March 2011}}</ref>
In January 1955, Coward joined the Old Comrades Lodge No. 4077 of UGLE.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.mqmagazine.co.uk/issue-17/p-47.php |title=Holocaust: The Count of Auschwitz |journal=MQ Magazine |date=April 2006 |accessdate=14 June 2011}}</ref>
He was the subject of ''This Is Your Life'' in 1960 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre.
==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 Avey's book). This was adapted into a 1962 film also titled ''The Password Is Courage'' 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.
==Awards== [[File:Charles Coward 1905 – 1976 Rescuer of prisoners from Auschwitz lived here 1945 - 1976.jpg|thumb|upright|English Heritage blue plaque commemorating Coward at his home in 133 Chichester Road, London]] In 1963, Coward was named one of 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. 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.<ref name=Telegraph9Mar2010>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/7402443/Britons-honoured-for-holocaust-heroism.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100312103651/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/7402443/Britons-honoured-for-holocaust-heroism.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=12 March 2010 |title=Britons honoured for holocaust heroism |work=The Telegraph|date=9 March 2010 |accessdate=9 March 2010 }}</ref>
==Counterclaims== Since Coward's death his claims have been treated with some scepticism. One major difficulty is that there are no known surviving fellow escapees,<ref name="wollheim-CJC"/> 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.<ref name="JRWhite">{{cite journal |last=White |first=Joseph Robert |year=2001 |title="Even in Auschwitz... Humanity Could Prevail": British POWs and Jewish Concentration-Camp Inmates at IG Auschwitz, 1943–1945 |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=266–295 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/hgs/15.2.266 |accessdate=11 March 2011 |url=http://www.csub.edu/~mbaker2/white.pdf |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606131420/http://www.csub.edu/~mbaker2/white.pdf |archivedate=6 June 2011 }}</ref>
==See also== * Arthur Dodd (Auschwitz survivor)
==References== {{reflist}}
==Bibliography== * {{cite journal |title=Affidavit and Testimony of Charles J. Coward |journal=Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10, October 1946 – April 1949 |volume=VIII |pages=603–616 |date=July 1947 |url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/NT_war-criminals_Vol-VIII.pdf |accessdate=20 September 2014 }} * {{cite book |last=Castle |first=John |title=The Password is Courage |publisher=Souvenir Press |location=London |year=1954}}
==External links== * [http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/karel_sperber_19101957/ Karel Sperber] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110517222429/http://louisdl.louislibraries.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=%2FHNF&CISOPTR=173&REC=2 Photo of Coward at Nuremberg] * [http://www.mqmagazine.co.uk/issue-17/p-47.php ''Masonic Quarterly Magazine'' Holocaust: The Count of Auschwitz] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110606131420/http://www.csub.edu/~mbaker2/white.pdf ''British POWs and Jewish Concentration-Camp Inmates at IG Auschwitz, 1943–1945''], Joseph Robert White, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies * [http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4014395 Charles Coward] – his activity to save Jews' lives during The Holocaust, at Yad Vashem website
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Coward, Charles}} Category:1905 births Category:1976 deaths Category:People from Edmonton, London Category:Royal Artillery soldiers Category:British Army personnel of World War II Category:World War II prisoners of war held by Germany Category:British Righteous Among the Nations Category:Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Category:British Heroes of the Holocaust Category:Escapees from German detention