 A pupil at a gymnasium in Kraków, at the outbreak of World War II he decided to join the Polish Army in the West.While crossing the border with Hungary on 7 May 1940, "en route" to trying to join up with the Polish Army stationed in France, he was caught and arrested by the Gestapo on the false suspicion that he was a resistance fighter.A month later, on 14 June 1940, he was sent to the newly created Auschwitz concentration camp with the first transport of 728 Polish political prisoners.