Witold Pilecki (born on May 13rd, 1901 with Olonets - deceased (shot) on May 25th, 1948 with Warsaw) - soldier and resistant Polish. He is the only interned known person of his own liking in the concentration camp Nazi of Auschwitz. He organizes resistance there and since 1940 informs the Allies of the detention conditions of the prisoners and the atrocities made in the German concentration camps. In 1943, he escapes from Auschwitz and takes share with the Insurrection of Warsaw the following year. In 1948, Pilecki is carried out by the Polish Communists.

Biography

Witold Pilecki is born in 1901 in Olonets (at the edge of the Lac Ladoga), in Russia, where its family had been transferred from force after the Polish national insurrection of 1863 against Russia tsarist (his/her grandfather had taken part in it). In 1918, during the First World War, it integrates the Polish units of the self-defense into Wilno. It then takes part in the Russo-Polish Guerre (1919-1920) by ordering a section of the Polish scouts, then in a unit of cavalry. For its bravery, it was decorated twice with the military cross of the brave men (Krzyż Walecznych). Demobilized, it turns over to the school to pass the vat and settles in the countryside.

In September 1939, it fights in the cavalry. Its group takes share in the hard combat against the Wehrmacht then made walk towards south-east in direction of Lwow. September 17th, after the Soviet invasion of the east of Poland, it is withdrawn in Warsaw. November 9th, 1939, it forms the Armée Secret Polonaise, one of the first organizations of resistance in Poland. It organizes a clandestine network in Warsaw but also in central Poland with Siedlce, Radom and Lublin. Later this organization will be built-in the Armia Krajowa ( AK - the Army of the interior).

In 1940, it has to its superiors resistance the plan suggesting penetrating in the German concentration camp KL Auschwitz (German name of the Oświęcim city) in order to collect information on the camp and to organize the resistance of the interior. September 19th, 1940, with documents in the name of " Tomasz Serafiński" , Pilecki is made voluntarily capture during one of the German raids in the streets of Warsaw, taken along with 2000 other passers by (among them Władysław Bartoszewski is). After two days of tortures in the hutments of the Wehrmacht, the survivors are sent to Auschwitz.

Once inside the camp, while working in the Arbeitkommando S, it organizes the Union of the Military Organizations (Związek Organizacji Wojskowych, ZOW ) mainly with an aim of collecting information on the activities of the Germans, to transmit them to Polish resistance, like preparing the combat against the S. ZOW thus sent an in October 1940 report/ratio to Warsaw, the report/ratio was transmitted to the British government in March 1941. Pilecki hoped that the Allies parachute weapons on the camp to help the prisoners to release themselves or that AK attacks the camp of outside. In 1943, understanding that these plans do not exist, it decides to personally convince its superiors of the need for attacking Auschwitz and with two comrades from the camp It escapes prepares a second report/ratio very detailed on the situation in the camp the Army of the interior judges that it does not have sufficient manpower to frontally attack the KL Auschwitz and request of the assistance to the Allied ones - the British refuse to grant the air assistance. Information of the " Pilecki" report/ratio; (- extracted here) are judged exaggerated (it there written that 2 million people was exterminated during the first three years of the existence of Auschwitz, and envisages of them 3 million in the two years to come) - even reaction that on the " report/ratio Karski ".

August 25th, 1943, Pilecki arrives at Warsaw and begins its work in the secret services where it integrates a section preparing resistance to the possibility of the Soviet occupation of Poland. Starting from August 1st, 1944, beginning of the Insurrection of Warsaw , it fights in the various units of the Army of the interior - as private and as commander of company. Following the failure of the insurrection, it is made prisoner of war.

After the release in 1945, it joined the 2nd Army corps Polonaise belonging to the British army. It receives the order to turn over to Poland, then under Soviet domination, in order to undertake activities of espionage. In 1946, the international political situation brings the Polish government, in exile in London, to give the order to cease the clandestine actions of Polish resistance. Pilecki refuses to obey and continuous to collect information concerning the communist crimes directed against the opponents with the mode, the old resistant ones of the Army of the interior as well as the returned soldiers of the Western face

May 8th, 1947, it falls itself between the hands from the Security service interior ( UB ). Tortured, judged at the time of a public lawsuit (the evidence is manufactured), he is recognized guilty of espionage to the profit of the western powers and is condemned to died the next on May 15th.

Ten days later, he is shot in the prison of the street Rakowiecka in Warsaw, place of detention of the Polish political prisoners.

External bonds

• report/ratio of Auschwitz

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