page_title: Henri Picard
section_title: 'Great Escape'
hierarchical_section_title: Henri Picard / 'Great Escape'
caption_attribution_description: Català: Recordatori pels oficials afusellats. Deutsch: Mahnmal für die erschossenen Offiziere. English: Memorial to "The Fifty" down the road toward Żagań. Memorial to "The Fifty" Allied airmen executed after the "Great Escape". Español: Memorial «a Los 50». Lietuvių: Sušaudytų karo lakūnų belaisvių kapas Poznanėje. Nederlands: Herdenkingsmonument voor "De vijftig", langs de weg richting Zagan[19]. Polski: Pomnik upamiętniającą rozstrzelanych lotników. Na trzeciej tablicy w lewej kolumnie widnieje nazwisko Włodzimierza Kolanowskiego.
context_page_description: Henri Picard, was a Belgian Supermarine Spitfire pilot who was taken prisoner during the Second World War. He is notable for the part he took in the 'Great Escape' from Stalag Luft III in March 1944 and as one of the men re-captured and subsequently shot by the Gestapo.
context_section_description: Picard was one of the 76 men who escaped the prison camp on the night of 24–25 March 1944, in the escape now famous as "the Great Escape".
  Travelling in a group of four escapees with Gordon Brettell and Picard as Frenchmen and Romualdas Marcinkus and Tim Walenn as Lithuanians, all posing as foreign labourers they managed to board a train heading towards Frankfurt (Oder), and  Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland). Most likely, they intended to travel to East Prussia and over the Lithuanian border hoping to cross the Baltic Sea to neutral Sweden. When the Germans discovered the escape they began manhunts. Picard  and the group travelled further than most of the escapees, but were captured by the Gestapo near Schneidemühl on 26 March. The party of four were brought to Stalag XX-B, and spent the night there, their presence being carefully recorded by the camp sergeant-major who issued them with clothing more suited to a prisoner of war in the hope of avoiding the possibility of them being charged with espionage. On the following day they were handed over to the Danzig Gestapo. Its officials took the men to a forest near Prusce and executed them on 29 March his body was cremated in Danzig's Gestapo crematorium.
  Picard was one of the 50 escapers who had been listed by SS-Gruppenfuhrer Arthur Nebe to be killed, so was amongst those executed and murdered by the Gestapo. Originally his remains were buried at Sagan, but he is now buried in part of the Poznan Old Garrison Cemetery beside his brother escapers. He is commemorated by name on the "North Weald Memorial" at St Andrews Church, North Weald.
  Picard's name was amongst those in the list of the murdered prisoners which was published when news broke on or about 20 May 1944.
   
  A memorial plaque in his name was unveiled at Beauvechain air force based in Belgium on 1 December 1951.
  Some his private papers from 1940 survive in the Imperial War Museum in London.
  Examples of excellent caricatures drawn by Picard have survived.
caption: Memorial to "The Fifty" down the road toward Żagań (Picard at right)
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