On This Day: Witold Pilecki Allows Himself to be Captured by the Nazis

“On 19 September 1940—the second street round-up in Warsaw. Several people are still alive, who saw me walk alone at 6:00 a.m. and stand in the ‘fives’ arranged of people rounded up in the street by SS-men.”—An excerpt from the reports sent by Witold Pilecki to superiors in the Polish resistance

At a time when people were doing anything they could to avoid falling into Nazi hands, Witold Pilecki, an officer in the Polish resistance, intentionally inserted himself into a group of captives on September 19, 1940. His papers identified him as “Tomasz Serafi_ski,” and he, along with 2,000 others, were sent to Auschwitz. His mission was to both gather intelligence on the camp and organize a secret resistance movement.

Born May 13, 1901, in Russia to a family with deep revolutionary roots, Witold Pilecki had an unstoppable drive for justice. He joined the military as soon as he graduated from high school. He fought against the Germans in the 1939 invasion of Poland, and cofounded the Polish Secret Army, later part of the Home Army.

Once Pilecki got inside Auschwitz, he set up an underground organization (ZOW) of officials, guards and prisoners, with the intent of smuggling intelligence out, improving prisoner morale and providing organization in the case of a camp takeover.

Until Pilecki started sending his reports, most of the world thought Auschwitz was simply an internment camp. The ghastly horror of the torture, abuses and killings helped cement anti-Nazi sentiment and incited several governments to begin to plan liberation of he camps. Meanwhile, the Gestapo attempted to discover the identities of those in the secret organization and succeeded in killing quite a few of them.

Late on the night of April 26, 1943, Pilecki and two members of his organization took advantage of an off-camp assignment and escaped from the bakery where they were working. After a few days of travel, all three made it safely to the base of a Home Army unit.

Pilecki tried to convince the Home Army and other Allied forces to attack the camp and free the prisoners, but his reports that millions were being killed in the camp were thought to be an exaggeration, and the Polish army did not feel strong enough to take on the Nazis. When, on August 1, 1944, Polish troops fought to liberate Warsaw from German occupation, Pilecki joined in the fight but ultimately manned one of the last outposts to fall to the Germans.

Nearly six months later, the Gestapo sent the prisoners of Auschwitz away and destroyed many parts of the camp in anticipation of invasion by the Soviet army.

Pilecki was collecting evidence of Soviet atrocities when he was arrested on May 8, 1947, by the Polish police. Accused of espionage, among other crimes, he was found guilty and sentenced to death in show trial. He was executed on May 25, 1948.

It wasn’t until 1990 that Pilecki’s reputation as a war hero was restored. The Polish government has since launched a campaign to laud Pilecki for his efforts to free Auschwitz’s prisoners and fight for Poland’s independence from German rule. He was posthumously given the highest Polish military honor, and in 2008, a campaign began to declare May 25, the anniversary of Pilecki’s death, the Day of Heroes who Fought against Totalitarianism.