Great Love

It happened exactly 66 years ago today. Yes, the date was July 21, 1944. The place was Hitler’s concentration camp for jews in Auschwitz.

Jerzy Bielecki was walking along with his Jewish sweetheart, Cyla Cybulska, towards the exit gate. Jerzy was wearing a stolen German Nazi SS uniform. They nervously approached the German guards at the gate. The guards looked suspiciously at Jerzy’s forged pass and eyed the two for a long time. Finally the guard said the sweetest words: Ja Danke (Yes, Thank You) and let Jerzy and Cyla out of the death camp and into freedom.


Prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp used to say that the only way out was through crematorium chimneys. Jerzy and Cyla were one of the very few to escape from here.

The 23 year old Jerzy was a German speaking Catholic from Poland. In 1940, the Germans falsely suspected him as a resistance fighter and arrested and brought him to Auschwitz. From 1942, large number of jews were arrested and brought to this concentration camp. One of them was Cyla. Most of the jews were sent to gas chambers. Some were kept (to be sent to gas chambers later) to do hard work. Cyla was one of them.

While doing hard work at the concentration camp, Jerzy met Cyla. Their friendship grew into love. As their love blossomed, Jerzy started to work on a daring escape plan.

From another prisoner who was working in the “uniform department”, he got a German Nazi SS Uniform and a forged pass. He told Cyla “Tomorrow an SS-man will come to take you for interrogation and that SS-man will be me”.

The next day, July 21, 1944, Jerzy wore his stolen German Nazi SS uniform and arrived at the yard where Cyla was working. He demanded the German supervisor to release this woman for interrogation. Jerzy led her out of the barrack and onto a long path leading to a side gate where the guards finally let them go through.

They walked out with fear that any minute a bullet would hit their head. They stayed in hiding during the day and walked through fields for 9 nights before they reached Jerzy’s uncle’s house. At one time, Cyla was too tired to walk. She told Jerzy to abandon her and go to his uncle’s house by himself. And, he said:

“Cyla, we fled together. We will walk on together. I am not going to abandon you”. He sometimes carried her. Jerzy’s mother who was living with his uncle was overjoyed to see his son.

They were going to marry. But fate intervened. In 1945, Soviet Army entered Poland and in the confusion Jerzy and Cyla were separated. Cyla thought Jerzy was killed and eventually immigrated to New York. Jerzy settled in Poland.

They both wanted to see other in case both of them were alive. Their wish came true one day. In 1982, Cyla was telling her Auschwitz escape story to a polish woman. She said she heard the same story from a man in the Polish television.

She tracked down his phone number and one day in May 1983, she called him on the phone. When the phone was answered she said: Jerzy, this is me, your little Cyla.

After a few weeks they met at the Krakow Airport. He brought 39 Red Roses, one for each year they spent apart. Cyla died in New York in 2002.

Jerzy, now 89, said in an interview: It was great love.