Witold Pilecki

Life

Witold Pilecki was born on May 13, 1901 in the town of Olonets, Karelia, in the Russian Empire. He was a descendant of an aristocratic family (szlachta) originally from the Grodno Region. His grandfather, Józef Pilecki h. Leliwa, was a member of the Polish landed gentry and a dedicated Polish nationalist. He had been a supporter of the secessionist January Uprising of 1863–1864. Following the brutal defeat of the uprising by Russian forces, Józef Pilecki, like most Polish nobles who supported the rebellion, had his title revoked; his estate near Lida and his other properties were confiscated by the Russian government. He was also condemned to exile in Siberia for seven years. After his release he and his family were forcibly resettled by Tsarist authorities to the remote territory of Karelia. The family was prohibited from living outside this province for the next thirty years and its members were bound by law to be employed only by the Russian state.

Witold's father, Julian Pilecki, was trained as a forester in Saint Petersburg and joined the Russian civil service, taking a position as a senior inspector with the Board of National Forests in Karelia. He would eventually settle in the town of Olonets where he married Ludwika Pilecki née Osiecimska. Witold Pilecki was the fourth of couple's five children. In 1910, Ludwika and the children left Karelia and relocated to the Northwestern Krai. After being joined by their father the family settled in Wilno (now: Vilnius, Lithuania), where Pilecki completed primary school and became a member of the secret ZHP Scouts organization. During the First World War, Wilno was occupied by the German Army on September 5, 1915 and was incorporated into the German Ober Ost administration. Pilecki and his family fled the Eastern Front for Mogilev, Byelorussia. In 1916 Pilecki moved to the Russian city of Oryol, where he attended gymnasium and founded a local chapter of the ZHP group.

Polish–Soviet War and later career

In 1918, following the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I, Pilecki returned to Wilno (now part of the newly independent Polish Second Republic) and joined a ZHP Scout section of the Lithuanian and Belarusian Self-Defense Militia, a paramilitary formation aligned with the White movement under General Władysław Wejtko. The militia disarmed the retreating German troops and took up positions to defend the city from a looming attack by the Soviet Red Army. However, Wilno fell to Bolshevik forces on 5 January 1919, and Pilecki and his unit resorted to partisan warfare behind Soviet lines. He and his comrades then retreated to Białystok where Pilecki enlisted as a szeregowy (private) in Poland's newly-established volunteer army. He took part in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921, serving under Captain Jerzy Dąbrowski. He fought in the Kiev Offensive (1920) and as part of a cavalry unit defending the city of Grodno. On 5 August 1920, Pilecki joined the 211th Uhlan Regiment and fought in the crucial Battle of Warsaw and in the Rudniki Forest (Puszcza Rudnicka). Pilecki later took part in the liberation of Wilno and briefly served in the ongoing Polish-Lithuanian War as a member of the October 1920 Żeligowski rebellion. He was twice awarded the Krzyż Walecznych (Cross of Valor) for gallantry.

Following the conclusion of Polish-Soviet War in March 1921 Pilecki was transferred to the army reserves. He was promoted to the rank of plutonowy (corporal) and was designated as a non-commissioned officer. He went on to complete his secondary education (matura) later that same year. In 1922 Pilecki briefly attended the University of Poznań where he studied agriculture. He soon returned to Wilno and enrolled with the Faculty of Fine Arts at Stefan Batory University. Pilecki was forced to abandon his studies in 1924 due to both financial issues and the declining health of his father.. He remained active in the military as a member of the army reserves and served as a military instructor in Nowe Święcice. Pilecki later underwent officer-training at the Cavalry Reserve Officers' Training School in Grudziądz. Following his graduation Pilecki was assigned to the 26th Lancer Regiment in July 1925 with the rank of Chorąży (ensign). Pilecki would be promoted to Podporucznik (second lieutenant) the following year.

In September 1926 Pilecki became the owner of his family's ancestral estate, Sukurcze, in the Lida district of the Nowogródek Voivodeship. Pilecki rebuilt and modernized the property's manor house, which had been destroyed during World War I. On 7 April 1931, he married Maria Pilecka née Ostrowska (1906 – 6 February 2002), a local school teacher originally from Kupa (Narach, Belarus). They had two children, born in Wilno: Andrzej (16 January 1932) and Zofia (14 March 1933). Pilecki and his family would later take up residence at Sukurcze. Pilecki developed a reputation as a community leader, a prominent social worker and amateur painter. He was also a vigorous advocate of rural development, founding an agricultural cooperative, heading the local fire brigade and also serving as chairman of a local milk-processing plant built in the district.. In 1932 Pilecki established a cavalry training school in Lida. Shortly afterward he was appointed commander of the newly-established 1st Lidsky Squadron, a position he would hold until 1937, when this unit was absorbed into the Polish 19th Infantry Division. In 1938, Pilecki received the Silver Cross of Merit for his community activism and his social work.

World War II

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, on 26 August 1939, Pilecki was mobilized as a cavalry platoon commander. He was assigned to the 19th Infantry Division under General Józef Kwaciszewski, part of the Polish Army Prusy. His unit took part in heavy fighting against the advancing Germans during the invasion of Poland. Pilecki's platoon was almost completely destroyed following a clash with the Panzer Division Kempf on 10 September.

Pilecki's platoon withdrew to the southeast, toward Lwów (now L'viv, in Ukraine) and the Romanian bridgehead, and was incorporated into the recently formed 41st Infantry Division, in which he served as divisional second-in-command under Major Jan Włodarkiewicz. Pilecki and his men destroyed seven German tanks, shot down one aircraft, and destroyed two more on the ground. On 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland pursuant to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Involved in more heavy fighting on two fronts, Pilecki was seriously wounded at the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski.

After the Polish government formally surrendered to Nazi Germany on September 27, 1939 Pilecki and many of his men continued fighting as partisans. His division was disbanded on 17 October, with parts of it surrendering to their enemies. Pilecki went into hiding in Warsaw with his commander, Major Włodarkiewicz. On 9 November 1939, the two men founded the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska, TAP), one of the first underground organizations in Poland. Pilecki became organizational commander of TAP as it expanded to cover not only Warsaw, but Siedlce, Radom, Lublin, and other major cities of central Poland.

By 1940, TAP had approximately 8,000 men (more than half of them armed), some 20 machine guns and several anti-tank rifles. To maintain his cover Pilecki worked as a manager of a cosmetics storehouse. Later, TAP was incorporated into the Union for Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej), later renamed and better known as the Home Army (Armia Krajowa, or AK). Within the AK, TAP elements became the core of the Wachlarz unit.

Auschwitz

In 1940, Pilecki presented to his superiors a plan to enter Germany's Auschwitz concentration camp at Oświęcim (the Polish name of the locality), gather intelligence on the camp from the inside and organize inmate resistance. Until then, little had been known about how the Germans ran the camp, and it was thought to be an internment camp or large prison rather than a death camp. His superiors approved the plan and provided him with a false identity card in the name of "Tomasz Serafiński". On 19 September 1940, he deliberately went out during a Warsaw street roundup (łapanka) and was caught by the Germans, along with some 2,000 civilians (among them, Władysław Bartoszewski). After two days of detention in the Light Horse Guards Barracks, where prisoners suffered beatings with rubber truncheons, Pilecki was sent to Auschwitz and was assigned inmate number 4859. During his imprisonment, Pilecki was promoted by the Home Army to the rank of Porucznik (first lieutenant).

At Auschwitz, while working in various kommandos and surviving pneumonia, Pilecki organized the underground Union of Military Organizations (ZOW). Many smaller underground organizations at Auschwitz eventually merged with ZOW. ZOW's tasks were to improve inmate morale, provide news from outside, distribute extra food and clothing to members, set up intelligence networks and train detachments to take over the camp in the event of a relief attack by the Home Army, arms airdrops or an airborne landing by the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade based in Britain.

ZOW provided the Polish underground with invaluable information about the camp. From October 1940, ZOW sent reports to Warsaw, and beginning in March 1941, Pilecki's reports were being forwarded via the Polish resistance to the British government in London. In 1942, Pilecki's resistance movement was also broadcasting details on the number of arrivals and deaths in the camp and the inmates' conditions using a radio transmitter that was built by camp inmates. The secret radio station, built over seven months using smuggled parts, was broadcasting from the camp until the autumn of 1942, when it was dismantled by Pilecki's men after concerns that the Germans might discover its location because of "one of our fellow's big mouth".

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 that the Home Army would organize an assault on it from outside. Such plans, however, were all judged impossible to carry out. Meanwhile, the Camp Gestapo under SS-Untersturmfuhrer Maximilian Grabner redoubled its efforts to ferret out ZOW members, succeeding in killing many of them. Pilecki decided to break out of the camp with the hope of convincing Home Army leaders personally 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 26/27 April 1943, taking with them documents stolen from the Germans.

Outside the camp

After several days as a fugitive Pilecki made contact with units of the Home Army. On 25 August 1943, Pilecki reached Warsaw and was attached to Section II (intelligence and counter-intelligence) of the Home Army's regional headquarters. After losing several operatives reconnoitering the vicinity of the camp, including the Cichociemny Stefan Jasieński, it was decided that the Home Army lacked sufficient strength to capture Auschwitz without Allied help. Pilecki's detailed report (Raport Witolda – Witold's Report) estimated that "By March 1943 the number of people gassed on arrival reached 1.5 million.".

On 11 November 1943, Pilecki was promoted to Rotmistrz (cavalry captain) and joined a secret anti-communist organization, NIE (in Polish: "NO or NIEpodległość – INdependence"), formed as a clandestine unit within the Home Army with the goal of preparing resistance against a possible Soviet occupation. The Soviet Red Army, despite being within attacking distance of the camp, showed no interest in a joint effort with the Home Army and the ZOW to free it. Until he became involved in the Warsaw Uprising, Pilecki remained in charge of coordinating ZOW and AK activities and provided what limited support he was able to offer to ZOW.

Warsaw Uprising

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out on 1 August 1944, Pilecki volunteered for service with Kedyw's Chrobry II Batallion. At first, Pilecki served as a common soldier in the northern city center, without revealing his actual rank to his superiors. Later, after many officers were killed in the fierce fighting that occurred during the early days of the uprising, Pilecki disclosed his true identity to his superiors and accepted command of the 1st "Warszawianka" Company located in Śródmieście in downtown Warsaw. Pilecki fought under the nom de guerre "Captain Roman". His forces held a fortified area called the "Great Bastion of Warsaw", one of the most outlying of partisan redoubts. Pilecki and his men inflicted significant casualties and caused considerable logistical difficulties for German supply lines by routinely seizing control of a strategically placed building overlooking the city's main west-east thoroughfare, Jerusalem Avenue. The bastion held for two weeks in the face of almost constant attacks by German infantry and armor.

In mid-August Pilecki's Company occupied the insurgent stronghold in the Railway Post Office connected to the Warszawa Gdańska station. Here again he and his men would hold out against frequent German attempts to dislodge them. Pilecki would keep this position in insurgent hands for six weeks and was ejected only after a specialized German task force was brought in and drove the partisans out using flame throwers and explosives. After the capitulation of the uprising, Pilecki hid a cache of weapons in a private apartment and surrendered to the Wehrmacht on October 5, 1944. He was imprisoned at Stalag VIII-B, a German prisoner-of-war camp near Lamsdorf, Silesia. He was later transferred to Oflag VII-A in Murnau, Bavaria where he was liberated by troops of the US 12th Armored Division on April 28, 1945.

Communist Poland

After the defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945, Pilecki was sent to Great Britain as a staff officer of the Polish Armed Forces in the West. In July 1945 he was reassigned to the military intelligence division of the Polish II Corps under General Władysław Anders in Ancona, Italy. While stationed there Pilecki began writing a monograph on his experiences at Auschwitz.

In October 1945, as relations between the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet-backed regime of Boleslaw Bierut deteriorated, Pilecki was ordered by General Anders and his intelligence chief, Lt. Colonel Stanislaw Kijak, to return to Poland and report on the prevailing military and political situation under Soviet-occupation. Pilecki arrived in Warsaw in December 1945 and proceeded to begin organizing an intelligence gathering network, which included several wartime associates from Auschwitz and the Secret Polish Army (TAP).

By mid-1946 Pilecki’s network had successfully made contact with Poland’s anti-Soviet partisans and established an underground courier system to spirit information from Warsaw to the headquarters of the Polish II Corps in Italy. However, its greatest achievement was the recruitment of Captain Wawel Alchimowicz, an official of Poland’s Ministry of Public Security (MBP), the communist secret police.

Alchimowicz provided the underground with highly-sensitive material on the MBP’s covert operations, internal organization and senior personnel as well as evidence that the results of the people’s referendum of June 1946 had been forged by the MBP to favor the communists and their allies. This information was compiled into the so-called “Blade Report” and was dispatched to the II Corps in December 1946 by Pilecki. During this time Pilecki’s group was itself infiltrated by Leszek Kuchinski, a former TAP member and double agent for Poland's Stalinist government.

To maintain his cover identity, Pilecki lived under various assumed names and changed jobs frequently. He would work as a jewelry salesman, a bottle label painter and as night manager of a construction warehouse. Nevertheless, Pilecki was informed in July 1946 that his actual identity had been uncovered by the MBP. He was ordered to leave the country; but he declined. In April 1947, he began independently collecting evidence of Soviet atrocities committed in Poland during the 1939–1941 occupation as well as evidence of the unlawful arrest and prosecution of Home Army veterans and ex-members of the Polish Armed Forces in the West, which often resulted in execution or imprisonment.

Arrest and execution

On 8 May 1947, Pilecki was arrested by agents of the Ministry of Public Security. Prior to trial, he was repeatedly tortured. The investigation of Pilecki's activities was supervised by Colonel Roman Romkowski. He was interrogated by Col. Józef Różański, and lieutenants S. Łyszkowski, W. Krawczyński, J. Kroszel, T. Słowianek, Eugeniusz Chimczak and S. Alaborski – men who were especially infamous for their savagery. But Pilecki sought to protect other prisoners and revealed no sensitive information.

On 3 March 1948, a show trial took place. Testimony against Pilecki was presented by a future Polish prime minister, Józef Cyrankiewicz, himself an Auschwitz survivor. Pilecki was charged with illegal border crossing, use of forged documents, not enlisting with the military, carrying illegal arms, espionage for General Władysław Anders, espionage for "foreign imperialism" (thought to be British intelligence) and planning to assassinate several officials of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland. Pilecki denied the assassination charges, as well as espionage, although he admitted to passing information to the 2nd Polish Corps, of which he considered himself an officer and thus claimed that he was not breaking any laws. He pleaded guilty to the other charges. On 15 May, with three of his comrades, he was sentenced to death. Ten days later, on 25 May 1948, Pilecki was executed at the Mokotów Prison in Warsaw (also known as Rakowiecka Prison), by Staff Sergeant Piotr Śmietański (who was nicknamed "The Butcher of Mokotow Prison" by the inmates).

I've been trying to live my life so that in the hour of my death I would rather feel joy, than fear.

During Pilecki's last conversation with his wife he told her: "I cannot live. They killed me. Because Oświęcim [Auschwitz] compared with them was just a trifle." His final words before his execution were "Long live free Poland".

Afterward, the Polish government-in-exile decided that the post-war political situation afforded no hope of Poland's liberation and ordered the remaining active members of the Polish resistance (who became known as the cursed soldiers) to either return to their normal civilian lives or escape to the West.

Pilecki's place of burial has never been found but is thought to be somewhere within Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery. After the fall of communism in Poland a symbolic gravestone was erected in his memory at Ostrowa Mazowiecka Cemetery. In 2012, Powązki Cemetery was partially excavated in an effort to find Pilecki's remains.

Legacy

Pilecki's show trial and execution was part of a wider campaign of repression against former Home Army members and others connected with the Polish Government-in-Exile in London. In 2003, the prosecutor, Czesław Łapiński, and several others involved in the trial were charged with complicity in Pilecki's murder. Józef Cyrankiewicz, the chief prosecution witness, was already dead, and Łapiński died in 2004, before the trial was concluded.

Witold Pilecki and all others sentenced in the show trial were rehabilitated on 1 October 1990. In 1995, he was posthumously awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta and in 2006 he received the Order of the White Eagle, the highest Polish decoration. On 6 September 2013, he was posthumously promoted by the Minister of National Defence to the rank of Colonel.

Films about Pilecki include a 2006 made-for-TV movie, Śmierć rotmistrza Pileckiego (The Death of Captain Pilecki), starring Polish actor Marek Probosz; the 2015 film Pilecki starring Mateusz Bieryt; and the documentaries Against the Odds: Resistance in Nazi Concentration Camps (2004); and Heroes of War: Poland (2014) produced by Sky Vision for the History Channel UK. A number of books have been written about Pilecki. In addition, Pilecki's comprehensive 1945 report on his undercover mission at Auschwitz was published in English for the first time in 2012, under the title The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, and was hailed by The New York Times as "a historical document of the greatest importance".

Polish Army career summary