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31.01.2024

Report W KL AUSCHWITZ 1940-1943 by Captain Witold Pilecki is now available for download

Witold Pilecki – Volunteer in Auschwitz, is a unique and symbolic man. During German occupation he was involved in underground activities against the German occupiers. As a volunteer, aware of the consequences and risks, he agreed under an assumed name - Tomasz Serafiński - to be caught in September 1940 in Warsaw and to be imprisoned by the Germans in the Auschwitz-Birkenau German concentration camp. Whilst in the camo, he coordinated the resistance movement, gathered and passed to the outside world the information about mass exterminations by the Germans against the Jewish population and their unprecedented cruelty, In April 1943, along with Jan Radziej and Edward Ciesielski he escaped from the camp. After escaping, he prepared the most important document "Report W", in which he described the situation in the German Concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

As Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland said: Pilecki was an example of inexplicable goodness at time of inexplicable evil. There is ever-growing awareness of Poles helping Jews in the Holocaust, and how they paid with their lives, like Pilecki. We must honor these examples and follow them today in the parts of the world where there are horrors again. When God created the human being, God had in mind that we should all be like Captain Witold Pilecki, of blessed memory. May the life of Witold Pilecki inspire us all to do one more good deed, of any kind, catch and every day of our lives.

A shining example of heroism that transcends religion, race and time.

 

See other IPN publications at https://ipn.gov.pl/en/digital-resources/publications


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