Jan Komski

Who was Jan Komski?

Jan Komski was a Polish painter. He studied painting, anatomy, and art history at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts.

During World War II, he worked in the resistance movement. In 1940 he fled Poland and headed toward France to join Sikorski's Army that was being formed there. However, he was arrested at the border of Czechoslovakia and imprisoned in Nowy Sącz and Tarnów before being sent to Auschwitz I in the first prisoner transport to that concentration camp. He was given prisoner number 564 under the name Jon Baraś, due to the forged identification papers he was carrying when arrested.

On December 29, 1942, he escaped Auschwitz I with three other prisoners: Mieczyslaw Januszewski, Boleslaw Kuczbara, and Otto Küsel. Sixteen days later he was recaptured on a train heading toward Warsaw. Fortunately, he used a false name in his first arrest, as the Germans would have executed him on the spot had they known he was an Auschwitz escapee. He was sent to Montelupich Prison and from there back to Auschwitz II where he was given the prisoner number 152,884.