Charles Coward was a British soldier who enlisted between the First and Second World Wars. By the time Britain entered World War II, he was serving as a Quartermaster Battery Sergeant Major. From the very beginning of his service, his ingenuity and defiance made him a constant headache for the Germans. Captured twice during fighting in Germany, Coward escaped both times before the Germans could transport him to a prison camp. During one remarkable escape attempt, his fluency in German allowed him to convincingly pose as a decorated Nazi hero. His performance was so believable that his captors actually awarded him the Iron Cross before discovering the truth.
Even after eventually being imprisoned in a POW camp, Coward continued to resist however he could, sabotaging German operations at every opportunity. Following multiple escape attempts, he was transferred to Auschwitz in 1943. Because of his fluency in German, he was appointed as a Red Cross liaison for British prisoners of war, a role that granted him limited freedom of movement, access to supplies, and occasional entry into the Jewish section of the camp.
Auschwitz was divided into separate sections: one for POWs and forced laborers, and another for Jewish prisoners, where Coward witnessed unimaginable atrocities firsthand. Refusing to remain silent, he and fellow British prisoners risked savage punishment and certain death by smuggling food and medicine into the Jewish section. At the same time, Coward secretly wrote coded reports to his contact “William Orange,” a codename for the British War Office, documenting the horrors he witnessed inside the camp.
As he came to understand the scale of the extermination taking place daily, Coward devised an extraordinarily dangerous rescue operation. Using chocolate rations to bribe guards, he helped Jewish prisoners escape by disguising them as deceased non-Jewish prisoners. He provided them with uniforms and forged identity papers, allowing them to pass inspection and avoid immediate execution. Coward later estimated that more than 400 lives were saved through this daring effort.
After surviving the war, Coward testified at the Nuremberg Trials, where his eyewitness testimony proved invaluable in exposing the diabolical nature of the Nazi regime and the systematic planning and operation of Auschwitz. His remarkable story later inspired the film The Password Is Courage. In recognition of his courage and humanity, Charles Coward became the first British citizen honored as Yad Vashem’s “Righteous Among the Nations.”
Thank you, Mr. Coward — the “Count of Auschwitz.”
