Top Tweets for #pilecki

Witold Pilecki is regarded as the only known person to have volunteered to enter Auschwitz. His mission was to discover what was happening inside the camp, inform the outside world and establish a resistance network. Yesterday marked the 86th anniversary of Witold Pilecki’s arrest. “His decision to allow himself to be arrested was one of the bravest acts of the war,��� says Jack Fairweather, author of the acclaimed Pilecki biography The Volunteer and interim President and CEO of the Pilecki Institute (USA). How did his arrest come about? In the summer of 1940, the leadership of the Polish underground knew very little about the camp the Germans had established at Auschwitz. The town lay in the part of occupied Poland that the German Reich had annexed directly following the invasion of September 1939. At that time, Auschwitz was used primarily to crush Polish resistance and terrorise members of the Polish elite. The underground was looking for an officer who could enter the camp, gather information and establish clandestine structures there. Witold Pilecki was chosen for the mission. But an undertaking of such danger could not simply be imposed upon him as an order. The final decision was his. On 19 September 1940, Pilecki was staying at the home of his sister-in-law, Eleonora Ostrowska, in Warsaw’s Żoliborz district. German units had sealed off the neighbourhood and begun a large-scale roundup. The building’s caretaker twice offered to hide Pilecki, but he declined. Pilecki had prepared himself for his arrest, both mentally and physically. He had even packed a toothbrush. When, shortly afterwards, there was a violent knock at the door, Pilecki said goodbye to Ostrowska’s son and went to face the German uniformed officers. Before being led away, he whispered to his sister-in-law: “Report where necessary that I have carried out the order.” That same day, Pilecki and the other detainees were taken to a barracks in Warsaw. Two days later, the prisoners were marched to the railway station and locked inside freight wagons. Pilecki was carrying false papers in the name of Tomasz Serafiński. There was no guarantee that he would actually be sent to Auschwitz. He could not know where the Germans would take him, and anyone arrested during such a roundup faced an immediate threat to their life. His mission therefore began with a decision whose consequences he could not control. At Auschwitz, Pilecki was assigned prisoner number 4859. Despite the omnipresent terror, he established a secret resistance network that eventually included hundreds of prisoners. The organisation gathered information about conditions in the camp and passed it to the outside world. At the same time, it created a system of mutual assistance: it obtained food and medicine, supported weakened prisoners and those in particular danger, and attempted to have them assigned to less arduous work details. From the beginning of his imprisonment, Pilecki collected information about German crimes and living conditions at Auschwitz. His first message reached the Polish underground in Warsaw as early as October 1940. Further reports followed regularly. Among other methods, Pilecki had them smuggled out of the camp by released prisoners. Through the structures of the Polish Underground State, the information reached the Polish government-in-exile in London and subsequently the Allies. Later reports also documented Auschwitz’s development into a centre for the extermination of Europe’s Jews. After two years and seven months, Pilecki decided to escape. On the night of 26–27 April 1943, he fled Auschwitz together with Edward Ciesielski and Jan Redzej. Once free, he wrote extensive reports describing his experiences and the crimes committed in the camp.

❗️ Widział piekło Auschwitz i dramat Powstania, brał udział w dwóch wojnach. Kiedy wydawało się, że przyszło wyzwolenie, wpadł w sidła komunistów. 🗓 25 maja 1948 roku komuniści zabili jednego z najdzielniejszych obrońców Niepodległej 🇵🇱 – rtm. Witolda Pileckiego. 🟥 Egzekucję przeprowadzono w warszawskim więzieniu na Mokotowie. Bezpośrednim wykonawcą wyroku był sierż. Piotr Śmietański, zwany „katem z Mokotowa”, który za wykonanie egzekucji otrzymał dodatkowe wynagrodzenie. 🟥 Rotmistrza zamordowano strzałem w tył głowy. Jego ciało zostało pogrzebane w nieznanym miejscu. 🔍 Dowiedz się więcej o bohaterskim rotmistrzu: https://t.co/zygrcxU358