Faces of Auschwitz - Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki (May 13, 1901 - May 25, 1948) was a Polish cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader. He spent 29 years in service for the his country and was even a co-founder of the Polish Secret Army.
During his 29 years, he volunteered for a resistance operation which entailed being imprisoned at Auschwitz. His mission was to gather intelligence on the operations of Auschwitz and then escape to inform his superiors of the inner-workings of the Nazi camp; at the time the Polish government, along with the rest of the world, did not know anything about Auschwitz.
Pilecki needed to gain entry into Auschwitz so he deliberately entered an area of Warsaw where the Germany Army was conducting a roundup of Polish civilians. Pilecki was detained along with about 2,000 other Polish civilians. Pilecki being a Polish intelligence agent, wanted to keep his true identity anonymous so he carried the documents of an alias and was registered under the name Tomasz Serafinski, or prisoner 4859. They were held for 2 days in the barracks of what used to be for the Polish Cavalry before being transported to Auschwitz; detainees were harshly treated, beaten and brutalized with rubber truncheons, during their time at the barracks. Now at Auschwitz, Pilecki organized a new resistance movement inside the camp called "the Union of Military Organization" which quickly merged with another organization operating inside the walls of Auschwitz. These newly-merged organizations aimed to keep the morale of the prisoners up by passing along news of the war, acquiring supplies and food for the prisoners (food and clothes), and forwarding messages from outside the camp. By 1942, Pilecki was able to relay messages back to Polish intelligence using a secret radio transmitter that was built by inmates at the camp.
After 2 and half brutal years at the concentration camp Pilecki and two other inmates, Ciesielski and Redzej, would escape on the night of April 26th, 2943. The prisoners began by cutting various telephone wires and alarm ring-wires, then moved on to unlocking, opening, and then barricading the door to freedom to ensure a head start. They ran east and crossed the Sola river that night, moved on to cross the Vistula river the next day, and hastily rowed their way to a forest on a boat they had found along the way.
In August 1943, Pilecki reached Warsaw where he presented an extensively detailed report on his experience at the concentration camp; it included resistance activities and the disposition of the prisoners as well as the murder of Poles, soviet prisoners of war, and the establishment of the Zigeunerlager (a gypsy camp).
Wow, Pilecki was amazing! The fact that he was able to get into Auschwitz under a fake name, organize a resistance, help inmates build a radio to communicate with Polish Intelligence officials, and then escape after two-and- a half years with many documents talking about his experience at Auschwitz is truly amazing. He seemed to have great courage, as well as a lot of determination. When he decided to do all of those things, he must have really wanted the public to know about what was really going on at Auschwitz. It was also important that he told Polish Intelligence about what was going on so that they could then try to do something about it.
ReplyDeletePilecki after the war continued to Communist Poland where he later ended up tried and executed Pilecki was arrested by agents of the Ministry of Public Security in 1947, and was repeatedly tortured before going to trial. He was interrogated by several men, who were infamous for their savagery. But Pilecki sought to protect other prisoners and revealed no sensitive information. A trial took place on 3 March 1948, and testimony against Pilecki was presented by future Polish prime minister Józef Cyrankiewicz, himself an Auschwitz survivor. Pilecki was charged with illegal border crossing, use of forged documents, not enlisting with the military, carrying illegal arms, espionage for General Władysław Anders, espionage for "foreign imperialism" (British intelligence), and planning to assassinate several officials of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland. Pilecki's place of burial has never been found but is thought to be somewhere within Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery. In 2012, Powązki Cemetery was partially excavated in an effort to find his remains, but they were never found.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki#Arrest_and_execution
Pilecki is a very important person in terms of the Holocaust and I think he represents an important group of people who aren't talked about enough. He not only risked his life by going to Auschwitz but he also breaking against camp rules by smuggling in food, for example, further risking his safety. However, he was vital because he is someone that can account for what happened in Auschwitz and what went on inside the concentration camps in order to get the Nazis stopped.
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