One person can really make a difference. Here is a story of one man, an intelligence officer, who implemented his beliefs in an incredible life that was tested by the dual evils of Nazism and Communism.
Hardly anyone outside his family has ever heard of him. As far as we know, nothing apart from this article was ever written about him in English. He doesn't even have a known grave. After surviving Auschwitz, the Communists finished him off with a coup de grace. Professor Chodakiewicz tells his amazing story.
In the era of the universal inflation of the notion of heroism, here comes a story about an individual who has amply earned the right to be called a hero. Witold Pilecki was an extraordinary man by any measure. Born in the northern reaches of the Russian Empire, Pilecki was a grandson of Polish Siberian exiles, who had fought for freedom against the Tsar. His parents instilled in him compassion and patriotism. Thus, the ethos of serving humanity and Poland expressed itself in the life-long obligation to the weak and the oppressed. He was further taught to love poetry and painting. Last but not least, Pilecki’s family imparted to him the importance of faith. He was a practicing Christian; and The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis served as his guiding light.
At thirteen, Pilecki joined an underground scouting cell, an organization banned by the Tsar. At eighteen, he volunteered for a mounted guerrilla unit in the Wilno area, where the local Poles were defending themselves from the forces of anarchy unleashed by the Revolution in Russia. A year later, Pilecki served in a regular cavalry regiment in the Polish-Bolshevik War (1920). He was twice decorated for bravery.
Following the war, Pilecki graduated from high school and, next, the school for cavalry cadet officers. In 1926, he retired to his landed estate at Skurczyce near Wilno. Pilecki became a gentleman farmer and an avid horse-breeder. He involved himself in social and charity work at the local level. He married Maria nee Ostrowska. The couple had two children: Andrzej and Zofia born in the early 1930s.
The idyllic country life was interrupted by the invasion of Poland by Hitler and Stalin in September 1939. Second Lieutenant (later Captain) Pilecki fought until his unit was nearly completely annihilated. The remnants cached their weapons and continued the struggle in the underground. Pilecki co-founded the underground Secret Polish Army (TAP), which, eventually, joined the umbrella resistance Home Army.
In September 1940 the intrepid freedom fighter volunteered for a reconnaissance mission to the mysterious new Nazi installation, the concentration camp at Auschwitz. To achieve his end, Pilecki simply allowed himself to be arrested by the Gestapo. He was beaten for two days and then duly sent to Auschwitz.
Pilecki no more, he became prisoner no. 4859. “During the first two days I felt dazzled as if I landed on a different planet. After the SS herded us with rifle butts behind the barbed wire onto a field swept with spotlights, we ran the gauntlet of incredibly joyous and screaming camp trustees. They put our ranks in order with their clubs… laughing and joking as they were dispatching the sick and the weak, as well as these who had a misfortune of admitting that they were judges or priests. I had an impression that we were locked up in a loony bin.”
Nonetheless, Pilecki immediately set out to establish an underground group (Union of Military Organizations, ZOW) at the camp and to assist fellow prisoners. In time, Pilecki’s Union embraced not only all Polish political options but also reached o
