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Witold Pilecki “Witold”

Witold Pilecki was born in an aristocratic family (coat
of arms of Leliwa) in Olonets in Karelia on 13 May
1901. During his youth he was active in the Scout
movement. In the years 1918-1921 he served in
the Polish Army. He fought in the Polish-Soviet War
and was twice awarded with the Cross of Valour.
In the newly independent Poland he managed
the Sukurcze estate near Lida (today in Belarus)
which was recovered by the Pilecki family.
At the initiative of Marshal Edward Śmigły-
Rydz, Pilecki began to cooperate with the Polish
counterintelligence, known as the “second
department”.
He fought in the Polish defensive war in September
1939, after which he co-organized one of the first anti-
German resistance groups: the Secret Polish Army,
which joined the Home Army. On 19 September 1940
he voluntarily went to the Auschwitz death camp
on behalf of the Secret Polish Army. The goal of his
mission was to gather intelligence on the ground
and establish a conspiracy self-help and armed
resistance movement among the prisoners (Military
Organization Union), which was supposed to liberate
the camp with help from outside.
During his mission he was the first person to inform
the world of the ongoing German genocide. After
two years and seven months of imprisonment,
he managed to escape from the camp in order to
continue the implementation of his plan to liberate
the prisoners. Due to his volunteer mission in
Auschwitz he was recognized in the West as one of
the bravest men in German-occupied Europe.
During the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, he led
the defence of a fortified area that became known
as Witold’s Redoubt (Starynkiewicz Square) and
which was never seized by the Germans. After
being liberated from the German Oflag in Murnau,
Pilecki convinced General Władysław Anders that
he should return to the Soviet-occupied Poland and
establish an underground intelligence-gathering group
subordinated to the Polish Armed Forces in the West.
Thanks to his activity, the world learned about the extent
of the country’s subjugation to Stalin. At the critical
moment Pilecki declined the possibility to escape to
the West, saying: “Somebody has to stay here regardless
of the consequences”. He was arrested in May 1947 by
the Stalinist security services and subjected to brutal
interrogation. He was sentenced to death on trumped up
charges and executed at the prison’s torture chambers at
Rakowiecka street in Warsaw on 25 May 1948. A former
fellow prisoner at Auschwitz Józef Cyrankiewicz, who
was the Prime Minister at the time, didn’t stand up for
Pilecki.
Pilecki’s statement that when compared with Communist
repressions “Auschwitz was merely child’s play” allow us to compare the two totalitarianism of the 20th
century. Meanwhile, his request to his wife to buy
and read to their children the book “Imitation
of Christ” by Thomas à Kempis constitutes
the Rittmeister’s lasting message and legacy.
The place of burial of the Polish hero hasn’t been
identified to this day (it was probably the “hole of
death” at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw, known
as the Meadow – Łączka). Those responsible for
his death – the Communist authorities, brutal
investigators, prosecutors, judges – have never
been punished. In 2006, Pilecki was posthumously
awarded with the Order of the White Eagle, and in
2013 promoted to the rank of Colonel.
Tadeusz Płużański