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The Bravest Man Who Ever Died
by Chris
Kulczycki
Daily Kos
Wed Dec 14, 2005
Last week I wrote about Jan
Karski, who tried to warn the world of
the Holocaust. This article is about a man who showed
that courage and dedication have no limits, a man who
purposely had himself arrested and imprisoned in Auschwitz
to help those already there and also to warn the world
of the Holocaust. His name was Witold Pilecki and he
has been called the bravest man in World War II.
There is more below.
Perhaps the noblest example of
heroism I observed occurred in September of 1940, when
a captain in the Polish Intelligence, Witold Pilecki,
allowed himself to be captured by the Gestapo and sent
to Auschwitz in order to establish there a resistance
unit among Polish army officers. It was an almost impossible
task considering the extraordinary cruelty of the German
kapos and the vigilant security of the Gestapo. But
Pilecki was no ordinary man. His courage and determination
gave myself and others the will to overcome tremendous
obstacles - the constant threat of torture, execution
or starvation - despite our limited means.
But that was only the beginning
of Pilecki's bravery.
Witold Pilecki was born in Karelia, Russia, where Tsarist
Russian authorities had forcibly resettled his family.
He was born into a family of patriots; his grandfather,
Józef Pilecki, had been exiled to Siberia for his part
in the January Uprising (1863-65) against Tsarist Russia.
Pilecki's family moved to Wilno in 1910 where he joined
the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association or ZHP.
It was a Boy Scout-like group that later became a Polish
military force. He soon founded a chapter of the ZHP
in Orel, Russia.
With the outbreak of World War
I, the seventeen-year-old Pilecki joined the Polish
self-defense units. Next he fought in the Polish-Soviet
War (1919-20). Pilecki later joined the regular Polish
Army and fought in the defense of Grodno (in present-day
Belarus). In 1920
he joined the 211th Uhlan Regiment and fought in the
Battle of Warsaw, where the near-defeated Poles stunned
Europe by decisively trouncing a stronger Bolshevic
force and perhaps guaranteeing Poland's future freedom.
He also fought at Rudniki Forest and the liberation
of Wilno.
With Poland free and having
been twice awarded the Polish Cross of Valor, Pilecki
returned to his family farm to finish school. He attempted
studying fine arts at the Stefan Batory University
for a while. Finally, he finished Military school of
Cavalry Reserve in Grudziądz. Eventually
he settled, married and had two children. He was demobilized
by the army, but remained a cavalry officer. Lasting
peace, however, is rarely Poland's fate.
Just prior to the German blitzkrieg on September 1,
1939, Pilecki was mobilized as a cavalry-platoon commander.
He fought against the far better equipped advancing
Germans. Pilecki's platoon withdrew toward Lwów and
joined the 41st Infantry Division. Pilecki and his
men destroyed 7 German tanks and shot down two aircraft.
On September 17, after the Soviet Union invaded eastern
Poland his division was disbanded and he returned to
Warsaw with his commander, Major Jan Włodarkiewicz.
Soon thereafter Pilecki and
Włodarkiewicz formed the Secret Polish Army (Tajna
Armia Polska, TAP). Pilecki became its organizational
commander and expanded TAP to cover not only Warsaw
but most of the major cities of central Poland. TAP
had approximately 8,000 men. Later TAP was incorporated
into the larger Home Army (Armia Krajowaoror or AK).
When Pilecki learned of the existence of Auschwitz,
he presented a plan to his commanding officers. Pilecki
proposed to be arrested and sent to the concentration
camp where he could send out reports of what was happening,
and organize a resistance movement within the camp.
He would also try to of organizing a mass break-out.
Pilecki's colonel eventually agreed.
A little about Auschwitz from
polish.org.au:
Located 60 kilometres south
west of the city of Kraków, Auschwitz was established
on what was then occupied, by the Germans, Polish territory.
Auschwitz is the Germanised name of Polish town of
Oświęcim.
Auschwitz was not just a camp where people were simply
put to death. They were subjected to most inhumane
tortures and degradation. SS doctors performed the
most hideous experiments on the prisoners, without
the use of anaesthetics. Under the supervision of the
infamous Dr. Josef Mengele they carried out genetic
experiments on twins, and gynaecologist Prof. Dr. Carl
Clauberg experimented on sterilization of Jewish women
by injection. This was intended to limit reproduction
rates of the Slavic population, after the extermination
of the Jews. Prisoners who were slow to recover from
such experiments were put to death by an injection
of phenol.
Another form of torture was
the so called "roll
calls". Prisoners could be herded at any time
of day or night, regardless of the weather, where they
were kept standing for hours - often in freezing cold.
Those who could not stand were shot by SS guards. Starvation
to death was also a form of punishment.
Initially the prisoners were
executed by being shot. The so called "wall of death" where this
was carried out has been preserved to this day. Later
with the increasing influx of the Jews, a more "efficient" form
of execution was invented by the Nazis. In September
of 1941 a first experiment was conducted with a hydrogen
cyanide gas called "Zyclon B" (Cyclone B)
manufactured by the well known German chemical firm
IG Farben. The first experiment was carried out on
250 Polish and 600 Russian Prisoners of War. It was
such a success, that Himmler decided to use it on a
large scale to exterminate the Jews.
When the original Auschwitz camp became too small for
Nazi extermination plans, a much larger extermination
centre was built 3 kilometres from Auschwitz at Birkenau
(Germanized from Brzezinka). It was also known as Auschwitz
II.
Before the bodies were cremated
their heads were shaved for the manufacture of cloth.
Gold tooth fillings, crowns and bridge work were knocked
out and melted into bars to help the German "War Effort".
A Gestapo roundup in the Żoliborz district of Warsaw,
where Pilecki was arrested.
On September 19, 1940 allowed himself to be captured
by the Germans. His aim was to go to AuschwitzHe arrived
at Auschwitz the night of September 21-22, 1940, in
the "second" Warsaw transport. His cover
name was Tomasz Serafinski. And he was registered as
number 4859. In Auschwitz he was assigned the work
of building more huts to hold the increased numbers
of prisoners. He immediately began to investigate
the situation in the camp and to establish cells of
the underground there.
Marching to work (I believe this is the main gate to
Auschwitz).
This is from artacus.schoolnet.co.uk:
Pilecki
soon discovered the brutality of the Schutz Staffeinel
(SS) guards. When one man managed to escape on 28th
October 1940, all the prisoners were forced to stand
at attention on the parade-ground from noon till nine
in the evening. Anyone who moved was shot and over
200 prisoners died of exposure. Pilecki was able to
send reports back to the Tajna Armia Polska explaining
how the Germans were treating their prisoners. This
information was then sent to the foreign office in
London.
In 1942 Pilecki discovered that
new windowless concrete huts were being built with
nozzles in their ceilings. Soon afterwards he heard
that that prisoners were being herded into these huts
and that the nozzles were being used to feed cyanide
gas into the building. Afterwards the bodies were taken
to the building next door where they were cremated.
Pilecki got this information to the Tajna Armia Polska
who passed it onto the British foreign office. This
information was then passed on to the governments of
other Allied countries. However, most people who saw
the reports refused to believe them and dismissed the
stories as attempts by the Poles to manipulate the
military strategy of the Allies.
In the autumn of 1942, Jozef Cyrankiewicz, a member
of the Polish Communist Party, was sent to Auschwitz.
Pilecki and Cyrankiewicz worked closely together in
organizing a mass breakout. By the end of 1942 they
had a group of 500 ready to try and overthrow their
guards.
Four of the inmates escaped
on their own on 29th December, 1942. One of these men,
a dentist called Kuczbara, was caught and interrogated
by the Gestapo. Kuczbara was one of the leaders of
Pilecki's group and so when he heard the news he realized
that it would be only a matter of time before the SS
realized that he had been organizing these escape attempts.
Pilecki had already arranged
his escape route and after feigning typhus, he escaped
from the hospital on 24th April, 1943. After hiding
in the local forest, Pilecki reached his unit of the
Tajna Armia Polska on 2nd May.
Children at Auschwitz
A few more details on his time
in Auschwitz from polishresistance-ak.org:
In a report he wrote after the war the aims of his
mission were summarised as follows:
`The setting up of a military organisation within the
camp for the purposes of:
keeping up the morale among fellow inmates and supplying
them with news from the outside
providing extra food and distributing
clothing among organization members
preparing our own detachments to take over the camp
in the eventuality of the dropping of arms or of a
live force [i.e. paratroops]'
Pilecki's secret organization, which he called the
`Union of Military Organization' [ZOW], was composed
of cells of five prisoners who were unknown to one
another with one man designated to be their commander.
These cells were to be found mainly in the camp hospital
and camp work allocation office.
Once the first cells were established,
contact with Warsaw became essential It so happened
that at the time, by exceptionally fortuitous circumstances,
a prisoner was released from the camp who was able
to take Pilecki's first report. Later reports were
smuggled out by civilian workers employed in the camp.
Another means was through prisoners who had decided
to escape.
In the autumn of 1942 the SS
uncovered part of the Polish underground network, arrests
followed and around 50 prisoners were executed.
From the very start Pilecki's
principal aim was to take over Auschwitz concentration
camp and free all the prisoners. He envisaged achieving
this by having Home Army detachments attacking from
the outside while cadre members of his Union of Military
Organization, numbering around a thousand prisoners,
would start a revolt from within. All his reports primarily
concerned this matter. However, the Home Army High
Command was less optimistic and did not believe such
an operation to be viable while the Eastern Front was
still far away.
Pilecki therefore felt it necessary
to present his plans personally. This meant that he
would have to escape from the camp, which he succeeded
in doing with two other prisoners on 27th April 1943.
Before the breakout Pilecki passed on his position
within the camp organization to fellow inmate Henryk
Bartoszewicz. However, neither his subsequent report
nor the fact that he presented it in person altered
the high command's opinion.
Here are some excerpts from
Pilecki's Diary (as translated by Felis in Its
A Matter Of Opinion:
(Pilecki's
diary (1) translated from Polish)
They made us run
straight ahead towards the thicker concentration of
lights. Further towards the destination (the SS troopers)
ordered one of us to run to the pole on the side of
the road and immediately a series from a submachine
gun was sent after him. Dead.
Ten other inmates were pulled out at random from the
marching column and shot with pistols while still running
to demonstrate to us the idea of "collective reprisal" if
an escape was attempted by any one of us (in this case
it was all arranged by the SS troopers).
They pulled all eleven corpses by ropes attached to
just one leg. Dogs baited the blood soaked corpses.
All of it was done with laughter and jeering.
We were closing to the gate,
an opening in the line of fences made of wire.
There was a sign at the top: "Arbeit macht frei" (Through
Work To Freedom).
Only later we could fully appreciate its real meaning.
Pilecki survived his first days in Auschwitz and later
established the first cell of his secret organization.
(Pilecki's diary (2) translated
from Polish)
From the darkness, from above
the camp's kitchen, Seidler the butcher spoke to us: " Do not even dream that
any one of you will get out of here alive... your daily
food ratio is intended to keep you alive for 6 weeks;
whoever lives longer it's because he steals and those
who steal will be placed in SK, where nobody lives
for too long."
Wladyslaw Baworowski- the camp's interpreter translated
it to us into Polish.
It was meant to break our psychological resistance.
SK (Straf-Kompanie - Penal Company).
This unit was designated for
all Jews, priests and Poles whose "offences" were proven. Ernst
Krankemann, the Block Commander, had a duty of finishing
off as many prisoners of the unit as he possibly could
to make room for new, daily "arrivals".
This duty suited Krankemann's character very well.
If someone accidentally moved just a little bit too
much from the row of prisoners, Krankemann stabbed
him with his knife, which he always carried in his
right sleeve.
If someone, afraid of making this mistake, positioned
himself slightly too far behind, he would be stabbed
by the butcher in the kidney.
The sight of a falling human
being, kicking his legs or moaning aggravated Krankemann.
He would jump straight away on the victim's rib cage,
kicked his kidneys and genitals, and finished him off
as quickly as possible.
Photo from Auschwitz
And some more from a Wikipedia article that differs
in a few details:
From October 1940 ZOW sent reports to Warsaw, and from
March 1941 Pilecki's reports were being forwarded via
the Polish resistance to the British government in
London. These reports were a principal source of intelligence
on Auschwitz for the Western Allies. Pilecki hoped
that either the Allies would drop arms or troops into
the camp, or the Home Army would organize an assault
on it from outside. By 1943, however, he realized that
no such plans existed. Meanwhile the Gestapo redoubled
its efforts to ferret out ZOW members. Pilecki decided
to break out of the camp, with the hope of personally
convincing Home Army leaders that a rescue attempt
was a valid option. When he was assigned to a night
shift at a camp bakery outside the fence, he and two
comrades overpowered a guard, cut the phone line and
escaped on the night of April 26-April 27, 1943, taking
along documents stolen from the Germans. In the event
of capture, they were prepared to swallow cyanide to
prevent the Germans learning the extent of their knowledge.
After several days, with the help of local civilians,
they made good their escape from the area and contacted
Home Army units. Pilecki submitted another detailed
report on
On August 25, 1943, Pilecki reached Warsaw and joined
the Home Army as a member of its intelligence department.
The Home Army, after losing several operatives in reconnoitering
the vicinity of the camp, including the Cichociemny
commando Stefan Jasieński, decided that it lacked sufficient
strength to capture the camp without Allied help. Pilecki's
detailed report (Raport Witolda--"Witold's Report")
was sent to London. The British authorities refused
the Home Army air support for an operation to help
the inmates escape. An air raid was considered too
risky, and Home Army reports on Nazi atrocities at
Auschwitz were deemed to be gross exaggerations (Pilecki
wrote: "During the first 3 years, at Auschwitz
there perished 2 million people; in the next 2 years--3
million").
As with Karski's reports, Pilecki's
where ignored. Though
most men would have been demoralized, Pilecki, never
stopped fighting. He was promoted to rotmistrz (cavalry
captain) and joined a secret group preparing to fight
the coming Soviet invasion.
On August 1, 1944 the ragtag Home Army rose up in a
valiant attempt to to liberate Warsaw from German occupation
and Nazi rule. Naturally Pilecki joined the fight.
The Polish troops resisted the Germans for 63 days.
But aid and airdrops promised by the allies never came.
The Soviet army, just across the river, did nothing,
preferring to watch the AK be destroyed. 18,000 Polish
soldiers and over 250,000 civilians were killed. 85%
of Warsaw was destroyed.
The Warsaw Uprising. Again
from Wikipedia:
When the Warsaw Uprising broke
out on August 1, 1944, Pilecki volunteered to the Kedyw's
Chrobry II group. At first he fought in the northern
city center without revealing his actual rank, as a
simple private. Later he disclosed his true identity
and accepted command of the 2nd company fighting in
the Towarowa and Pańska Streets area. His forces held
a fortified area called the "Great Bastion of Warsaw".
It was one of the most outlying partisan redoubts and
caused considerable difficulties for German supply
lines. The bastion held for two weeks in the face of
constant attacks by German infantry and armor. On the
capitulation of the Uprising, Pilecki hid some weapons
in a private apartment and went into captivity. He
spent the rest of the war at German prisoner-of-war
camps at Łambinowice and Murnau.
With World War II
over, Pilecki continued to fight for his country. He
lived in England and, for a few months in Italy, where
he wrote a memoir and joined an exiled Polish Army
Unit, the 2nd Polish Corps.
In September 1945 Pilecki returned
to Poland to gather intelligence. He proceeded to organize
an intelligence network. In the spring of 1946,
however, the Polish Government in Exile decided that
the postwar political situation afforded no hope of
Poland's liberation and ordered all partisans cease
operations. Pilacki began collecting evidence on Soviet
atrocities and executions.
Soon Pilecki was arrested as
member of the anti-communist resistance movement. He
was interrogated and tortured for many months. His
fingernails were pulled out and his collarbones broken
and he could hardly walk. He was tried by a Communist
court in 1948, sentenced to death. Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz,
a former Auschwitz inmate and co-founder of the leftist
resistance movement there, who knew Pilecki refuted
the claim made in court that Pilecki had been a founder
of the resistance movement in Auschwitz, and also refused
to support the request for clemency.
Pilecki at his trial
Witold Pilecki was executed
in Mokotów prison in Warsaw. His family was not permitted
to bury his corpse. His place of burial has never been
found. He is thought to have been buried in a rubbish
dump near Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery.
"The communist regime put Pilecki on the list of most censured individuals.
For half a century, perhaps the greatest hero of the Second World War completely
disappeared from books, newspapers and school curricula."
Pilecki wrote this poem before
his death.
That is why I write this petition,
That all the punishments, punish only me,
For though I should lose my life
I prefer it so - than to live, and bear a wound in
my heart.
Witold Pilecki was a man who knew the value of freedom.
Let's hope we don't forget it's value.
Flag
of the Home Army
Note:
There is not much written about
Pilecki in English, and my Polish is very rusty so
I won't guarantee that I've gotten every detail exactly
right, but I am confident the major facts are correct.
If anyone cares to try reading any of the many web
articles about Pilecki written in Polish, there is
a good free translation site at www.poltran.com.
"Rotmistrz
Pilecki" by Wieslaw Jan Wysocki is a biography
of Pilecki written in Polish; I've not read it. Pilecki
is said to have written an autobiography while living
in Italy.
Cross posted on European
Tribune, My
Left Wing, and Booman
Tribune.
Tags: History, World
War II, Pilecki, Auschwitz, Daily
Kos, Compassion (all
tags)
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