Four prisoners fled the Auschwitz Concentration Camp on December 29, 1942 in the afternoon.
They were Otto Kuesel and Jan Baras, Mieczysaw Januszewski and Dr. Bolesaw Kuczbara.
Otto Kuesel is a German Jew who worked in the camp as the driver of a horse cart. He taken four big cabinets and loaded his cart. These cabinets had the other three prisoners concealed in them. This was within his routine and the SS guards never bothered to check the cart. Kuesel was able to drive to an open field without being checked.
To escape, Mieczysaw Januszewski had a rifle, dressed in an SS uniform, and took one. He was sitting next to Kuesel as the two of them walked out of the camp. Januszewski presented a forged SS ID. This assisted them to get out of the main camp. Having departed, they called a Polish resistance force, the Polish Home Army, in their assistance.
A number of escapes in Auschwitz occurred as a result of working off the camp. These escapes could not have worked without the assistance of the local Polish people.
In 1940, the Auschwitz camp commander told in writing that the local Polish people detested the SS and could do anything to assist prisoners to evade them. He added that any captured prisoner would expect it to be aided by the locals.
It was on July 6, 1940 when the first escape happened at Auschwitz. One Polish man by the name of Tadeusz Wiejowski fled. He had the assistance of Polish civilian workers in the camp. He dressed like a worker. Helping him were five Polish workers who were arrested but only one of them survived to witness the end of the war.
Overall, there were 667 prisoners who escaped Auschwitz. But 270 of these prisoners were met with and killed on the spot.

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