Charles coward this is your life

Charles joseph coward background
How did charles coward die
Charles coward death

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The Heroic World War Two Volunteer – Charles Joseph Coward

He fought against the Nazis and was sent to a concentration camp. There he spied on his captors and risked his life to save those he could. All that under the name of Coward.

Charles Joseph Coward was born in Britain on January 30, 1905. He joined the British Army in 1937 and served with the 8^th Reserve Regimental Royal Artillery. By the time WWII started in 1939, he was a Quartermaster Battery Sergeant Major.

The Germans assaulted the port of Calais on May 21, 1940 – marking the start of the Siege of Calais. The Allies were driven back, and the British Expeditionary Force fled from France through the port of Dunkirk. Fortunately, most made it out in time to fight the Germans another day.

Unfortunately for Coward, he was not one of them, and he became a POW. He did have an advantage; he spoke German. He, therefore, used his language skills to make seven escape attempts by passing himself off as a German soldier.

One of the escape attempts worked, but he was injured. Sent to a German Army field hospital, he kep

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Glossary

“The SS guards did what the IG people told them. The IG people were the most powerful people there, and they were the ones who ruled.”[1]

Charles Joseph Coward was born in England in 1905. He entered the British Army on June 16, 1937. On May 25, 1940, he fell into German hands near Calais. At that time he held the rank of Battery Sergeant Major. He passed through several German POW camps and repeatedly attempted to escape, but was caught every time before he could get out of German-controlled territory. In December 1943, Coward was sent from Stalag VIII B in Lamsdorf (Łambinowice) to Auschwitz, where he was assigned to labor detachmentE715 as British Man of Confidence (Vertrauensmann). It was his task to deal with the German Wehrmacht, which guarded the prisoner of war camp, and act as spokesman for the British POWs’ concerns.

In Auschwitz, Coward saw first-hand the brutal treatment of the prisoners in the Buna/Monowitzconcentration camp at the I.G. construction site, and learned of the gas chambers in Birkenau. That prompted him to

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Charles Coward

British POW who saved over 400 Jews from Auschwitz

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 Armyfield hospital.^[2] When in captivity he was equally troublesome to his captors, arranging several acts of sabotage while out on work details.

Finally in December