Who was Witold Pilecki?

A Polish cavalry officer and underground soldier (1901 to 1948) who deliberately entered Auschwitz in 1940 to organise resistance and report on the camp.

Why did Pilecki go to Auschwitz?

To learn what was happening in the new camp, organise resistance among the prisoners and send intelligence to the Polish underground.

How did Pilecki escape from Auschwitz?

He escaped with two other prisoners on the night of 26 to 27 April 1943.

What was Witold's Report?

A detailed account of Auschwitz that Pilecki wrote after his escape, among the earliest and fullest descriptions of the camp.

He was arrested by Poland's communist security service in 1947, condemned in a show trial and executed in Warsaw on 25 May 1948.

Witold Pilecki: the man who volunteered for Auschwitz

In September 1940 a Polish officer let himself be caught in a German street round-up in Warsaw, so that he would be sent to Auschwitz. Inside, Witold Pilecki built a resistance network and smuggled out some of the first reports of what was happening in the camp. Eight years later he was executed, not by the Germans, but by Poland's new communist rulers.

A soldier of the borderlands

Born in 1901, Pilecki fought as a young volunteer¹ in the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 and became a reserve cavalry officer and landowner. He fought in the September campaign of 1939, then helped found one of the first underground organisations in occupied Warsaw, the Secret Polish Army².

Studio group photograph of six young men in uniforms and suits, two seated in front — Young Witold Pilecki (seated, far right) with members of a Polish scout troop in Oryol, Russia, in 1917. Warsaw Rising Museum collection. Public domain

Into Auschwitz

The underground knew little about the new camp at Auschwitz. Pilecki volunteered to find out. On 19 September 1940, using the false name Tomasz Serafiński², he allowed himself to be seized in a round-up and was deported to the camp, where he received prisoner number 4859².

The iron gate of Auschwitz I with the Arbeit macht frei sign, wooden guardhouse and brick blocks — The main gate of Auschwitz I with its "Arbeit macht frei" sign, photographed in 2012. Pilecki entered this camp as prisoner 4859 in September 1940. Jorge Láscar, CC BY 2.0

The resistance inside

In the camp Pilecki organised a secret network of prisoners³ that shared food, helped the weakest and gathered intelligence. Its reports, smuggled out through released prisoners and escapees⁴, reached the Polish underground and, through it, the government in exile in London. On the night of 26 to 27 April 1943 he escaped² with two companions and wrote a detailed report on the camp, known as Witold's Report.

The Warsaw Uprising and after

Pilecki fought in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and was taken prisoner⁵ by the Germans. After the war he joined the Polish II Corps in Italy and then returned to communist-ruled Poland to gather intelligence, on the orders of General Anders, for the Polish authorities in the West. Arrested in 1947, he was tortured, condemned in a show trial and shot in Warsaw's Mokotów prison on 25 May 1948⁵. His body has never been identified.

Black and white photograph of defendants seated behind tables in a courtroom, guarded by soldiers — Witold Pilecki and his co-defendants in the dock at their show trial in Warsaw in 1948. Public domain

Remembered at last

For decades the communist authorities erased his name. Pilecki was rehabilitated in 1990², and today he is honoured in Poland as a national hero and widely regarded as one of the bravest figures of the Second World War.

Sources and notes

Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.

Adam Cyra, Ochotnik do Auschwitz. Witold Pilecki 1901-1948 (Chrześcijańskie Stowarzyszenie Rodzin Oświęcimskich, 2000). ↩
dzieje.pl (PAP), “"Ochotnik" - biografia rotmistrza Pileckiego” ↩ a b c d e
Jack Fairweather, The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz (W. H. Allen, 2019). ↩
Witold Pilecki, The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, trans. Jarek Garliński, Aquila Polonica, 2012 (Pilecki's 1945 report). ↩
Pilecki Institute (Instytut Pileckiego), “Our patron” ↩ a b
Wikipedia, “Witold Pilecki”
Wikipedia, “Witold Pilecki”