In Warsaw, Poland, a poignant ceremony unfolded on Sunday, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the “Great Escape,” a daring and ingenious act of resistance during World War II. This event saw 76 prisoners of war burrow their way out of a German prisoner-of-war camp into the frigid embrace of a nearby forest.
The observance was graced by the presence of British soldiers, who solemnly carried photographs of pilots who were executed on the orders of Adolf Hitler. The British ambassador to Poland also attended the ceremony, marking the peak of weekend-long commemorations.
The Nazi POW camp, situated in what was then Germany but is now western Poland, was notorious for holding captured Allied air force personnel. Among the prisoners were British, American, and Polish soldiers, with British airmen spearheading the escape endeavor.
Adding to the solemnity of the Sunday ceremony, a Hercules C-130 transport aircraft, accompanied by four F-16 fighters of the Polish Air Force, performed a flyover above the town of Żagań and the ceremony site, as reported by Polish media.
The escape attempt from Stalag Luft III on the night of March 24, 1944, ended tragically for most. While only three of the escapees reached safety, the remainder were recaptured, with 50 facing execution.
Despite its largely unsuccessful outcome, the event earned the moniker “The Great Escape” and was immortalized in a 1963 film starring Steve McQueen, albeit in a highly fictionalized form. More recently, the escape was depicted in an episode of the American war drama miniseries “Masters of the Air” on Apple TV+.
In London, the U.K. National Archives has launched a new exhibition that honors the memory of the escapees. The prisoners had spent a year clandestinely digging three tunnels, named Tom, Dick, and Harry. Although the Germans discovered the first tunnel, the latter two remained hidden.
The plan aimed to free 200 men through tunnel Harry. However, the first man to emerge discovered the tunnel fell short of extending beyond the perimeter as planned. Only 76 men managed to escape before a guard noticed footprints in the snow.
Of those who escaped, only three men—two Norwegian pilots and one Dutch—successfully evaded recapture.
Hitler, infuriated by the escape, ordered the execution of the 73 recaptured men, a directive that led to the killing of 50—a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of war prisoners. Following the war, the execution of the allied airmen was scrutinized during the Nuremberg trials, resulting in several Gestapo officers being sentenced to death.