Witold Pilecki

A volunteer for Auschwitz

According to the Pilecki Institute he was born on 13 May 1901 in Olonets in Russian Karelia. In November 1939 he co-founded the underground Secret Polish Army.¹

On 19 September 1940 in Warsaw he deliberately let himself be caught in order to be sent to the camp, using the name Tomasz Serafiński. He was taken to Auschwitz on the night of 21–22 September 1940 in the second transport from Warsaw, of 1,705 prisoners, and was given the number 4859.^1,2,3,4

The camp underground and the reports

In the camp he built an underground military organisation linked to the Union of Armed Struggle and later the Home Army. It was to smuggle in medicine and food and eventually – with the help of partisans – liberate the camp.^1,2

The first report, from October 1940, was carried out by a released prisoner. It reached General Stefan Rowecki and, through the secret base ‘Anna’ in Stockholm, the Polish government in London; according to the Auschwitz Museum the information had reached England by 18 March 1941.²

The Pilecki Institute states that over three years he passed on at least 10 reports, carried by couriers to the government-in-exile, which passed them to the Allies; the information was ignored. The reports spoke, among other things, of the progressive extermination of the Jews at Auschwitz.^1,2

The escape and the 1943 report

On the night of 26–27 April 1943 he escaped from the camp together with Jan Redzej and Edward Ciesielski; at the beginning of May he reached Bochnia.^2,3

In June 1943, while in hiding, he wrote a report for Home Army headquarters. According to the Auschwitz Museum it was encrypted, with names replaced by numbers. It described the terror in the camp, the killings and the persecution of Poles, Soviet prisoners of war and Jews, as well as a plan to attack the camp, which the Home Army command did not approve. In 2017 the IPN published it in English as ‘Report “W”’.^2,3,4

Intelligence for Anders and the trial

He fought in the Warsaw Uprising, then was held in the prisoner-of-war camp at Murnau, liberated by the Americans on 29 April 1945. He joined the Polish II Corps in Italy; in the autumn of 1945 General Władysław Anders tasked him with building an intelligence network in Poland.^1,2

At the end of November 1945 he arrived in Poland as Roman Jezierski and ran an intelligence network. On 8 May 1947 officers of the security apparatus arrested him in a flat on Pańska Street in Warsaw.^1,2

On 15 March 1948, in a show trial, he was sentenced to death for alleged espionage. Bolesław Bierut confirmed the sentence on 20 May, and on 25 May 1948 Pilecki was shot in the Rakowiecka Street prison.^1,2,3

His burial place has not been found. He was rehabilitated on 1 October 1990.^1,2