Why Is Witold Pilecki Important?

history, people take a stand to support something they believe in. One instance of a person taking a stand was Witold Pilecki. Witold Pilecki was a Polish soldier born May 13, 1901. During World War 2 he volunteered for a Polish resistance operation to get imprisoned in the Auschwitz death camp to gather intelligence. It wasn’t common knowledge that Auschwitz was a brutal death camp and as early as 1941, Witold informed Western Allies the brutality of Auschwitz. After nearly two and a half year of imprisonment he escaped from the camp. He was involved in the Warsaw uprising and after the Soviet backed communist takeover of Poland he was arrested by the stalinist police. He was executed in 1948 after a show trial. Witold Pilecki impacted World

After the invasion of Poland Pilecki and other poles were determined to fight back however they could. Witold became chief of staff of the newly formed Polish Secret Army. Pilecki secret army was one of the original resistance movements that merged to form the Polish Home Army. The Polish Home Army assassinated key Nazi commanders, committed acts of sabotage and later fought full scale battle against the Germans. It was at this time that ominous rumors of the appalling conditions in Auschwitz started to spread. Unfortunately most people pasted them off as mere myth. Pilecki volunteered to find out what was really happening inside the barbed wire and because no one knew where they were taking the prisoners and little about how the Germans ran the camp was known. His superiors approved his plan. On September 19, 1940 Witold got himself captured in a street roundup by Nazi’s and was transported to Auschwitz. Little was known about Auschwitz at the time, It was thought that Auschwitz was an internment camp holding prisoners of war and those suspected of conspiracy. Despite Witold expecting horrible barbarity at Auschwitz, he went through an absolute

The goal that Pilecki desired to achieve next, was to merge all of the partisan groups of Auschwitz and organize a revolt.. The prisoners started to monitor the radio frequencies and prepared for self defense as well and planned for mutiny. Witold Pilecki along with his comrades, had extensively prepared military plans, designed for various critical situations that could happen at Auschwitz. During his time at Auschwitz, Pilecki smuggled out three short reports on the inhumane treatment inside. The reports eventually made their way to officials of the Polish government in exile in London, who passed the information to Allied forces. Witold’s information he reported helped people understand the horrors of Auschwitz. Later on, as the Germans retracted the collective responsibility punishment for the camp escapes, organizing prison break outs became very for the Union of Military Organizations. These, allowed for even more opportunities to release camp reports and other materials to the Warsaw High Command. The first great escape took place in May of 1942. There were over 3000 SS in the Auschwitz death camp. With such a powerful garrison at the time, it was estimated that the partisan forces could hold the camp and keep it open for about half an hour, allowing some 200-300 prisoners would escape. The rest would have to seek refuge on their own, were they were certain to be massacred.