Holocaust Survivor Recalls Romantic Escape

He stole a Nazi uniform and walked out with her
Holocaust Inmate Remembers Romantic Escape
Jerzy Bielecki is seen presenting photos of him in 1944, left, and Cyla in 1945, in his home in Nowy Targ, southern Poland.   (AP)

In 1942, Jerzy Bielecki was a 21-year-old Catholic Pole in Auschwitz. Sent to work in a warehouse, he met Cyla Cybulska, a Jewish girl. "A pretty dark-haired one, winked at me," Bielecki recalled. The two fell in love, and Bielecki began working on a daring plan for escape, which he recounts to the AP. He obtained a fake SS uniform and walked Cybulska out, telling officers the prisoner was needed for questioning.

The two made it out and walked to a farmhouse where Cybulska could hide from Nazis. They planned to marry, but fate prevented it. After the Soviets liberated Krakow (where Bielecki had hid), Bielecki began walking the 25 miles toward the farmhouse, but he was four days too late. Cybulska believed Jerzy had been killed and left. Both married other people, but amazingly found each other four decades later. Read the full article. (More Jerzy Bielecki stories.)

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