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Tribute to Polish WWII hero slain by communists

PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki 25.05.2018 08:30
President Andrzej Duda was on Friday expected to place flowers at the Wall of Death in the Rakowiecka Prison in Warsaw in tribute to a Polish war hero who was executed there by the communists 70 years ago.
Witold Pilecki. Photo: pilecki.ipn.gov.pl

Witold Pilecki was shot dead on May 25, 1948, following a show trial in which he was charged, among other things, with espionage for “foreign imperialism” and plans to assassinate several communist security service officials.

The Rakowiecka Prison, which is being turned into a museum, was later on Friday scheduled to be the venue of a commemorative event attended by Witold Pilecki’s daughter, Zofia Pilecka-Optułowicz, and his son Andrzej Pilecki.

A concert, a Catholic Mass, and another tribute at the Wall of Death were scheduled to take place at 9:30 pm, the exact time of Pilecki’s execution, along with a reading of excerpts from Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ.

During his last meeting with his wife, prior to his execution, Pilecki instructed her to read this particular book to their children.

Events commemorating the anniversary of Pilecki’s death were being held across Poland.

Witold Pilecki is known as a victim of two totalitarian systems and "the Auschwitz volunteer."

In 1940, he allowed himself to be arrested by the Germans and sent to the Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz in order to gain first-hand knowledge of the conditions there.

In his reports from Auschwitz, he wrote about the situation in the camp and German plans to exterminate European Jews.

In 1943, after escaping from Auschwitz, Pilecki reached Warsaw, and a year later fought in the Warsaw Uprising.

After the war he went to Italy and joined the Second Corps, part of the Polish Armed Forces in the West. He was then sent to communist-ruled Poland as an intelligence agent.

He was captured and executed by Poland’s communist authorities three years after the end of World War II. His burial place has never been found.

In 1990, he was rehabilitated and in 2008 posthumously awarded the Order of the White Eagle, the highest Polish state decoration. In 2013, he was posthumously promoted to the rank of colonel.

Pilecki’s original 400-page Auschwitz Report was published in the United States in 2012 under the title The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery.

(mk/gs)

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