Charles Coward Charles Joseph Coward ( 1905 – 1976 ) , known as the " Count of Auschwitz " , was a British soldier captured during World War II who rescued Jews from Auschwitz and smuggled himself into Auschwitz for one night , subsequently testifying about his experience at the Nuremberg Trials and the IG Farben Trial . Biography . Coward joined the Army in June 1937 . He was captured in May 1940 near Calais while serving with the 8th Reserve Regimental Royal Artillery as Quartermaster Battery Sergeant Major . He managed to make two escape attempts before even reaching a prisoner of war camp , and 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 . When in captivity he was equally troublesome , organising numerous acts of sabotage while out on work details . Finally , in December 1943 , he was transferred to Auschwitz III ( Monowitz ) labour camp ( " Arbeitslager " ) 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 . Thanks to his command of the German language , Coward was appointed Red Cross liaison officer for the 1 , 200 - 1 , 400 British prisoners . In this trusted role he was allowed to move fairly freely throughout the camp and often to surrounding towns . He witnessed the arrival of trainloads of Jews to the extermination camp , followed by their ' selection ' for either slave labour or the gas chamber s . Coward and the 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 , giving military information , notes on the conditions of POWs and prisoners in the camps , as well as dates and numbers of the arrival of trainloads of Jews to the extermination camp . On one occasion a note was smuggled to him from a Jewish - British ship ' s doctor who was being held in Monowitz . Coward determined to contact him directly and 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 they were held . His experience formed the basis for his subsequent testimonies in post - war legal proceedings . Determined to do something about it , he used Red Cross supplies , particularly chocolate , to " buy " corpses of dead prisoners , including Belgian and French civilian forced labourers , from the SS guards . Coward then directed healthy Jewish prisoners to join the nightly marches of Jews considered unfit for further work from Monowitz to the Birkenau gas chambers . During the course of the march the healthy men dropped out of procession to hide in ditches ; Coward scattered the corpses he had purchased on the road to give the impression that they were members of the column who had died on the march . 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 . Coward carried out this scheme on numerous occasions and is estimated to have saved at least 400 Jewish slave labourers . 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 . 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 . In 1953 Coward also appeared as a witness in the " Wollheim Suit " , when former slave labourer Norbert Wollheim sued I . G . Farben for his salary and compensation for damages . In January 1955 he joined the Old Comrades No . 4077 of UGLE . 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 . In 1963 Coward was named among 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 . Counter claims . Since Coward ' s death his claims have been treated with some scepticism . One major difficulty is that there are no known surviving fellow escapees , 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 . A fellow inmate of Coward ' s , Doug Bond , appears to doubt Coward ' s claim to have smuggled himself into Auschwitz for one night .