Duda commemorates Polish patriots
PR dla Zagranicy
John Beauchamp
25.05.2015 13:28
On the anniversary of the death of Witold Pilecki, President-elect Andrzej Duda has placed flowers at a plaque commemorating Poles murdered by the communist regime.
President-elect Andrzej Duda lays a wreath by a plaque commemorating Polish patriots murdered by the communist regime. Photo: PAP/Jakub Kamiński
The plaque is placed at the wall of the Rakowiecka Prison in Warsaw, where many of them were imprisoned and executed during the Stalinist period.
Today marks the 67th anniversary of the death of Captain Witold Pilecki, one of the greatest Polish war-time heroes.
In September 1940 he allowed himself to be arrested by the Germans and sent to Auschwitz, from where he managed to send reports indicating that an extermination of European Jews was being prepared by the Germans.
In 1943, having escaped from Auschwitz, Pilecki reached Warsaw, and a year later fought in the Warsaw Rising. After the war he went to Italy and joined the Second Corps. He was sent by the Polish intelligence to Poland as a spy.
However, he was captured and executed by the communist authorities in 1948. His burial place has never been found. In 1990, he was rehabilitated and in 2008 received posthumously the Order of the White Eagle, the highest Polish state distinction. (mk/jb)
Source: IAR