On the night of 5 April 1944, Siegfried Lederer, a Czech Jew, escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp wearing an SS-TV uniform provided by SS-Rottenführer Viktor Pestek. Pestek opposed the Holocaust; he was a devout Catholic and was infatuated with Renée Neumann, a Jewish prisoner. Pestek accompanied Lederer out of the camp, and the two men traveled together to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to obtain false documents for Neumann and her mother.
Lederer, a former Czechoslovak Army officer and member of the Czech resistance, tried unsuccessfully to warn the Jews at Theresienstadt Ghetto about the mass murders at Auschwitz. He and Pestek returned to Auschwitz in an attempt to rescue Neumann and her mother. Pestek was arrested under disputed circumstances and later executed. Lederer returned to occupied Czechoslovakia, where he rejoined the resistance movement and attempted to smuggle a report on Auschwitz to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Switzerland. After the war he remained in Czechoslovakia. The story of the escape was retold by Lederer and writers including historian Erich Kulka.
Siegfried Lederer
Siegfried Lederer [cs] or Vítězslav Lederer ( – ) was born to a Jewish family in in the Sudetenland, the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia. After the Sudetenland was annexed to Germany in 1938, he moved to Plzeň and did manual labor, including agricultural work and a stint in a kaolin factory. According to Lederer, he joined the Association of Friends of the Soviet Union, was influenced by Communist leader Marie Škardová, helped those living in hiding, and distributed illegal publications. Lederer also said that he was a member of the resistance group named after Lieutenant Colonel Jaroslav Weidmann. Later, Lederer joined Plzeňák 28, a Czech resistance group in Zbraslav so called because it had twenty-eight members, including Josef Pokorný, commander of the Zbraslav gendarmerie.
In November 1939 and again in November 1940, Lederer was arrested by the Gestapo for alleged resistance activity. On both occasions, he was quickly released because of a lack of evidence. He was arrested a third time and imprisoned with other political prisoners at the Small Fortress of Theresienstadt. On 18 January 1942, he was transferred to the adjacent Jewish ghetto, and was supposed to be deported on the next transport. Leo Holzer, the leader of the ghetto fire brigade—a hotbed of resistance—heard about Lederer's resistance activities and postponed his deportation by recruiting him into the fire brigade. Lederer later claimed that he had maintained contact with the Plzeňák 28 while at Theresienstadt, but survivors of that group testified that they had heard nothing from him until his escape. He was dismissed from the fire brigade and lost his protection from deportation because he was caught smoking. Deported to Auschwitz concentration camp on 18 December 1943, Lederer was forced to wear both yellow and red triangles, marking him as a Jew and a political prisoner. There is no evidence that he was involved in the Auschwitz resistance movement.
Viktor Pestek Viktor Pestek [cs, de] ( – ) was born in Czernowitz, Bukovina—which was then Romanian territory—to a devoutly Catholic ethnic German family. Auschwitz guard Stefan Baretzki grew up in the same town; he and Pestek were acquaintances as children. Pestek's father was a blacksmith and a small farmer; Pestek learned these trades as a young man. He joined the Waffen-SS, either because of his innate sense of adventure, or because of persuasion by his mother. During his service, Pestek fought in anti-partisan warfare near Minsk, Belarus. His unit was ordered to attack a village suspected of containing partisans, and to kill its inhabitants. When Soviet partisans opened fire at the Germans, they hit Pestek in his arm and in his leg. Separated from his unit, he and another wounded SS man named Werner hid in a barn.
After Werner had died of his injuries, partisans discovered Pestek. Despite the SS killings in the village, the partisans spared his life. This humane treatment in enemy hands caused him to have a change of heart and convinced him to oppose Germany's policies of genocide. According to Siegfried Lederer, Pestek said that he was a "killer, and a Soviet partisan spared my life anyway". By the time of his return to a German-controlled area, he had lost the use of his hand. Found unfit for front-line service, he was posted to the Auschwitz concentration camp as a guard. Pestek was an SS Rottenführer, which was a junior non-commissioned rank.
Auschwitz Background
Jews transported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz between September 1943 and May 1944 were housed in a separate block at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, known as the Theresienstadt family camp. They were not subject to selection upon arrival, were allowed to retain their civilian clothes, and were not forced to shave their heads. Families were allowed to stay together and write to their friends and relatives in an attempt to mislead the outside world about the Final Solution. The Nazis, however, were planning to kill each group of prisoners six months after their arrival.
Pestek was initially appointed the supervisor of section BIId of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Although he quickly developed a reputation for trading contraband, he was disgusted by the mass killings at Auschwitz and by the contempt of some German SS members for Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans from outside Germany), who comprised the majority of Auschwitz guards. Some SS men formed relationships with Jewish women in the family camp because, unlike other prisoners, they had been allowed to keep their hair. Pestek fell in love with Renée Neumann, a Czech Jewish prisoner at the family camp, although she did not return his affection. He arranged for Neumann to get a job as a block clerk and offered to help her escape by disguising her as an SS woman. This was unsuccessful, partly because Neumann was unwilling to leave her mother. According to Czech historian Miroslav Kárný, Pestek decided against escaping with Neumann and her mother because of their lack of contacts in the Czech underground who could help him evade prosecution until the end of the war.
On 8 March 1944, exactly six months from their arrival, the Jews from the family camp who had arrived in September were all gassed without a selection to find those able to work. Pestek rescued Neumann and her mother by temporarily moving them to a different block. Lederer was appointed block elder (Blockältester) of Block 14 within the family camp later that month. Alfred Cierer, a Czech Jewish industrialist, and his son Jakov Tsur moved in because they knew Lederer. Realizing he would have to act quickly to save Neumann's life, Pestek began to approach other prisoner functionaries and offer to help them escape. Among them were Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, who refused the offer because they believed it was a trick, and advised other prisoners not to trust Pestek. Previously, an SS man named Dobrovolný—an ethnic German from Slovakia—had met a Jewish childhood friend at Auschwitz. Dobrovolný offered to help him escape but then turned him in, resulting in his brutal execution and a bonus for the SS man. This and similar incidents persuaded Vrba, Wetzler and other prisoners that guards could not be trusted under any circumstances. According to Wetzler, Pestek told him, "I hate myself for having to watch women and children be killed. I want to do something to forget the smell of burning human flesh and feel a little cleaner." Pestek also approached the Czech Josef Neumann (not a relative of Renée Neumann), a kapo on the Leichenkommando, which was responsible for the disposal of corpses; Neumann refused.
Escape
According to Jakov Tsur, Pestek escorted Cierer to the Gestapo for interrogation and made an offer to him. When interrogated later, Cierer claimed the offer was only a transfer to another part of the camp, not a complete escape. Cierer, whose three children were with him in the family camp, refused the offer but suggested Lederer. Cierer and Pestek spoke in French to avoid being understood. Cierer later shared his contacts with Lederer in the hope that his escape would be successful, and the two men planned together how to break news of Auschwitz to the outside world—a plan they concealed from Pestek until after the escape. Other sources state that it was Lederer whom Pestek escorted to the Gestapo.
As a member of the family camp and because he was detained for his resistance activities, Lederer believed he had nothing to lose. He told Pestek he was wealthy and that his contacts in the underground would help Pestek and Neumann. Pestek and Lederer planned their escape, and their intended return to rescue Neumann, in considerable detail. Lederer would leave disguised as an SS man. After obtaining false documents in the Protectorate, Lederer and Pestek would return, impersonating SS officers, and present a forged Gestapo warrant for the arrest of Renée Neumann and her mother. The Auschwitz staff would provide a car and driver, who would be killed on the way to the Gestapo station. After disposing of the body, the escapees would take an express train to the Protectorate. The plan was based on Pestek's knowledge of protocol from his experience in the transport office.
Because he was a wounded soldier, Pestek was entitled to a long leave and requested it for 6 April 1944. On 3 April, he stole an SS uniform, pistol, and paybook for Lederer, who hid them in a double wall. Before standing guard at the gate of the family camp on the night of 5 April, Pestek left a bicycle by Lederer's barracks as a signal for him to come out. Pestek gave the correct passwords, telling the other guards Lederer was on special duty, and both men bicycled out of the front gate. They went to the railway station outside Auschwitz and caught a train to Prague, avoiding border control by pretending to be luggage inspectors. Lederer's absence was discovered in the morning of 6 April by an SS man inspecting the family camp who had seen a woman exiting Lederer's block and stepped in to investigate, only to discover Lederer missing. At 11:30, SS-Sturmbannführer Friedrich Hartjenstein, the commandant of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, sent a telegram to the German police notifying them that Lederer had escaped, probably disguised as an SS-Rottenführer. Another telegram four hours later reported that an SS man—presumably Pestek—was under suspicion for aiding the escape. Cierer and others suspected of being close to Pestek or Lederer were interrogated.
Aftermath Obtaining false papers
In Prague, Pestek and Lederer sold jewelry that Lederer had obtained on the Auschwitz black market and bought civilian clothes. They also altered their uniforms to resemble Waffen-SS soldiers instead of concentration camp guards. From Prague they went to Plzeň, where they hid with Josef Černík, a former Czechoslovak Army officer who had earlier helped Lederer find work. The police circulated a photograph of Lederer but did not offer a reward for his capture. Brigitta Steiner, the daughter of a friend of Lederer's, provided false civilian papers for him. She was a Mischling whose partial German ancestry prevented her deportation. She also told them of Faltys, a Jew in hiding in Prague who could arrange the rest of the papers, including SS officer identification for Pestek and Lederer that would give them the authority to arrest Renée Neumann and her mother. Faltys demanded an exorbitant fee but offered a discount if they could smuggle another woman out of Auschwitz.