Witold Pilecki

Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki
	Pilecki in a 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	Second Polish Republic; Polish government-in-exile;
Years of service	1918–1947
Rank	Cavalry captain (rotmistrz)
Commands held	Commander of the 1st Lida Military Training Squadron (1932–1937); Deputy Commander of the 41st Infantry Division (1939); Organizer of the Secret Polish Army (1939–1940); Organizer of the Union of Military Organizations (1940–1943); Commander of the Warszawianka Company (1944);
Battles/wars	Polish–Soviet War Wilno Offensive (1919); Kiev offensive (1920); First Battle of Grodno (1920); Battle of Warsaw (1920); ; Polish–Lithuanian War Żeligowski's Mutiny (1920); ; World War II September Campaign (1939); Warsaw Uprising (1944); ;
Awards	Order of the White Eagle; Order of Polonia Restituta; Cross of Valour (2); Silver Cross of Merit;
Alma mater	University of Poznań, Faculty of Agriculture (1922); Stefan Batory University, Faculty of Fine Arts (1922–1924);
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) 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^: 66 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.

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