Witold Pilecki | |
|---|---|
 Pilecki in a colorized pre-1939 photograph | |
| Born | 13 May 1901 Olonets, Olonetsky Uyezd, Olonets Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 25 May 1948 (aged 47) Mokotów Prison, Warsaw, Polish People's Republic |
| Cause of death | Execution by shooting |
| Buried | Unknown; possibly in Powązki Military Cemetery |
| Allegiance | |
| Years of service | 1918–1947 |
| Rank | Cavalry captain (rotmistrz) |
| Commands |
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| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | |
| Alma mater |
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| Spouse(s) |
Maria Ostrowska (m. 1931) |
| Children | 2 |
Witold Pilecki (13 May 1901 – 25 May 1948; Polish: [ˈvitɔlt piˈlɛt͡skʲi] ; codenames Roman Jezierski, Tomasz Serafiński, Druh, Witold[1]) was a Polish World War II cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader.
As a youth, Pilecki joined Polish underground scouting; in the aftermath of World War I, he joined the Polish militia and, later, the Polish Army. He participated in the Polish–Soviet War, which ended in 1921. In 1939, he participated in the unsuccessful defense of Poland against the German invasion and, shortly afterward, joined the Polish resistance, co-founding the Secret Polish Army resistance movement. In 1940, Pilecki volunteered[2]: 66 [3][4][5] to allow himself to be captured by the occupying Germans in order to infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp. At Auschwitz, he organized a resistance movement that eventually included hundreds of inmates, and he secretly drew up reports detailing German atrocities at the camp, which were smuggled out to Home Army headquarters and shared with the Western Allies. After eventually escaping from Auschwitz in April 1943, Pilecki fought in the Warsaw Uprising of August–October 1944. Following its suppression, he was interned in a German prisoner-of-war camp. After the communist takeover of Poland, he remained loyal to the London-based Polish government-in-exile. In 1945, he returned to Poland to report to the government-in-exile on the situation in Poland. Before returning, Pilecki compiled his previous reports into Witold's Report to detail his Auschwitz experiences, anticipating that he might be killed by Poland's new communist authorities. In 1947, he was arrested by the secret police on charges of working for "foreign imperialism" and, after being subjected to torture and a show trial, was executed in 1948.
His story, inconvenient to the Polish communist authorities, remained mostly unknown for several decades; one of the first accounts of Pilecki's mission to Auschwitz was given by Polish historian Józef Garliński, himself a former Auschwitz inmate who emigrated to Britain after the war, in Fighting Auschwitz: The Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp (1975). Several monographs appeared in subsequent years, particularly after the fall of communism in Poland facilitated research into his life by Polish historians.
- ^ "65 lat temu rotmistrza Pileckiego skazano na śmierć" [65 years ago, Captain Pilecki was sentenced to death] (in Polish). Museum of Polish History. Archived from the original on 10 April 2022. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
- ^ Besemeres, John (2016). "The Worst of Both Worlds: Captain Witold Pilecki between Hitler and Stalin". A Difficult Neighbourhood: Essays on Russia and East-Central Europe since World War II. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-17604-6-060-0.
- ^ Snyder, Timothy (22 June 2012). "Were We All People?". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
- ^ Patricelli, Marco (2010). Il volontario [The Volunteer] (in Italian). Laterza. pp. 53–268. ISBN 978-88-420-9188-2.
- ^ Szumilo, Mirosalw (2017). "Living with the Stigma of a 'Traitor of the Nation': The Plight of the Families of Victims of Stalinist Terror in Poland". In Budeanca, C.; Bathory, D. (eds.). Histories (Un)Spoken: Strategies of Survival and Social-Professional Integration in Political Prisoners' Families in Communist Central and Eastern Europe in the '50s and '60s. LIT Verlag. pp. 48–62. ISBN 978-36439-0-983-1.