Monday, August 17, 2020

Captain Witold Pilecki and the Resistance in Auschwitz

 Witold Pilecki was Auschwitz Prisoner 4859. He was also the only known individual in the world to enter the notorious death camp voluntarily - to gather intelligence for Poland's Underground and to form a Resistance Movement within the camp. He survived for nearly three years, then escaped. 

His mission in the notorious German Nazi concentration and death camp lasted almost three years, from 1940 to 1943. He was sent by Poland's Underground Resistance Movement to smuggle out information about the then-secret camp and to create a resistance organization within. After the war, he was arrested by communist authorities, tortured, given a show trial and executed - branded a traitor to his country. 

Before his death, Pilecki wrote a detailed report from his time in the camp. That report was recently translated into English, and published in 2012 by Aquila Polonica as The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery: Captain Witold Pilecki.

On Jan. 27, 2013 - International Holocaust Remembrance Day - the Embassy of Poland in the U.S. partnered with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on an event honoring Witold Pilecki.

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