Counter Claims
Since Coward's death his claims have been treated with some scepticism. One major difficulty is that there are no known surviving fellow escapees, and it is possible that all were recaptured and killed. When Coward himself was questioned by Yad Vashem researchers in 1962 he offered few details about their identities or fates saying "It is not known exactly how many of these people regained their freedom, because some people went different ways and to different countries." He added: "And naturally no records were kept of them because once they arrived in their new country, special papers were given to them and perhaps different names, etc." The revisionist position is that Coward may have saved a few Jews, but certainly not hundreds.
A fellow inmate of Coward's, Doug Bond, appears to doubt Coward's claim to have smuggled himself into Auschwitz for one night.
Read more about this topic: Charles Coward
Famous quotes containing the words counter and/or claims:
“Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world.”
—Susan Lieberman (20th century)
“So immense are the claims on a mother, physical claims on her bodily and brain vigor, and moral claims on her heart and thoughts, that she cannot ... meet them all and find any large margin beyond for other cares and work. She serves the community in the very best and highest way it is possible to do, by giving birth to healthy children, whose physical strength has not been defrauded, and to whose moral and mental nature she can give the whole of her thoughts.”
—Frances Power Cobbe (18221904)