What was the 'Greatest' (largest) mass escape during WW2?

Question

Any ex POW's out there?

Answer 1

Cowra Australia - August 1944 - somewhere between 500 - 1000 Japanese prisoners broke out of a prison camp. Over 200 were killed storming the camp's defences.

Answer 2

I'm not sure about this one, but the two I heard about the most were the Warsaw ghetto and Treblinka.

I'm not sure the Warsaw ghetto fight would count, since most of the Jews didn't escape. But at the time the Nazis were attempting to come in and force those Jews into the trains to go to the Concentration Camps for work and mass extermination. But here the Jews fought back. They gathered as many weapons as they could, but their most plentiful weapon was the Molotov Cocktail (a homemade bomb made mostly from gas and bottles--that is the best description I can give because I haven't found too much on them).

To my understanding with these minimal weapons they held off a rather vast Nazi army armed heavily with tanks and battle-hardened infantry soldiers for over a week. Many of the Jews were able to escape and join the Polish underground, but many died in the street-fighting and in the fighting on the rooftops.

The other one was Treblinka. I have heard about this one a lot, but I have gotten conflicting stories about it. But the basic story seems to be that a Russian soldier who was also Jewish was sent to the camp. He was able to set up a communications situation between the various parts of the camp to talk to nearly every Jew and establish a plan of escape.

The Jews here picked a specific day when the Nazi leaders in the camp were on "day off." Basically the security was allowed to go a little lax that day (similar to on Sundays in America). The Jews were able to assassinate all the leaders and radio operators without the camp finding out. They then all began to run toward the forest at the same time. With the communications down and all the leaders dead the Nazis were unable to mount a major operation of any kind to stop them.

Some of the Nazis were able to man guns and some of the Jews were killed, but most of them were able to escape into the nearby forests and join the Polish underground also. The camp was closed soon after when the Russians took it in battle.

But both stories speak to the heroism of the Jewish people. It is a great thing to remember that the Jews didn't just go quietly into the night as they are often portrayed to have been; waiting and hoping some kind-hearted German would save them or that the Allied armies would come, and just accepting death if it came before these saviors would. But that in actuality the Jews fought back.

Answer 3

I may be wrong but I would think it would be the escape of 76 allied POW's from Stalag Luft III a prison camp 100 miles south east of Berlin in 1944.

Within days most were recaptured and an outraged Hitler ordered 50 of them shot. 23 were incarcerated again and only 3 made it to safety.

This was immortalised in the film 'The Great Escape' starring Richard Attenborough and Steve McQueen, slightly innacurately though for no Americans took part in the escape.

Answer 4

Depends on the circumstances:

Mass breakout of Jewish prisoners from a Extermination Camp in the East during WW2 please Google "Escape from Sobibor".

Then there was the RAF Mosquito Squadron precision bombing of a French Prison under control of the gestao and ss, they dropped bombs to breech the outer prison and inner walls to get the prisoners out before execution.

There was also the circumstances regarding RAF prison officers that was the basis for the movie "The Great Escape" with Steve McQueen, most were captured and cold bloodily executed by the Gestapo.

Answer 5

i dunno the greatest, but where i live there is a conference centre which used to be like a prison camp for all the nazis that came over here and got captured and there used to be loads of them captured there and there was only ever one person that got away...and they made a film about it ( hardy kruger) n everything and coz the conference centre is next to our school we went and had a visit and we saw the tunnel which he dug out and escaped out of...apparently he was the only "one who got away" while in the UK....