Witold's Report

Witold's Report was an official over 100-page report prepared by Witold Pilecki, Polish army soldier and the secret agent of Polish resistance in Auschwitz concentration camp.

Contents

Background of Pilecki report

On November 9, 1939, after defeat of the Polish army in the Invasion of Poland, cavalryman Witold Pilecki with his commander Major Jan Włodarkiewicz founded the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska, TAP), one of the first underground organizations in Poland.[1] In 1940, Pilecki presented to his superiors a plan to enter Germany's Auschwitz concentration camp, gather intelligence on the camp from the inside, and organize inmate resistance.[2] Until then, little had been known about the Germans' running of 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 a false identity card in the name of "Tomasz Serafiński".[3] On September 19, 1940, he deliberately went out during a Warsaw street roundup (łapanka), and was caught by the Germans along with some 2,000 innocent civilians. After two days of torture in Wehrmacht barracks, he was sent to Auschwitz and got the number 4859.[3]

In Auschwitz

Inside the camp Pilecki organized an underground Union of Military Organizations (Związek Organizacji Wojskowej, ZOW)[4] connected with other smaller underground organizations.[5] Pilecki planned a general uprising in Auschwitz and hoped that the Allies would drop arms or troops into the camp (most likely the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade, based in Britain), and that the Home Army would organize an assault on the camp from outside. In 1943 Gestapo redoubled its efforts to ferret out ZOW members, succeeding in killing many of them.[6] Pilecki decided to break out of the camp, with the hope of personally convincing Home Army leaders about his idea of uprising in Auschwitz. On the night of April 26/27, 1943, made a daring escape from the camp but his plan was not accepted by the Home Army as the Allies considered his reports about the Holocaust exaggerated.

Report

ZOW's via intelligence network in camp and started to send regular reports to Home Army from October 1940. From November 1940 through ZOW, the resistance network organized in Auschwitz, was sent first information about the genocide to Home Army Headquarters in Warsaw.[7] From March 1941 Witold Pilecki's reports were forwarded to the Polish government in exile and through it, to the British government in London and other Allied governments. These reports informed the Allies about the Holocaust and were the principal source of intelligence on Auschwitz-Birkenau for the Western Allies.[8]

On June 20, 1942, Ukrainian Eugeniusz Bendera and three Poles, Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster and Józef Lempart made a daring escape from Auschwitz camp.[9] Dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, fully armed and in an SS staff car they drove out the main gate in a stolen automobile, a Steyr 220 belonging to Rudolf Hoss. Jaster member of ZOW carried with him detailed report about conditions in the camp, written by Pilecki. The Germans never recaptured any of them.[10]

After a daring escape from Auschwitz on April 27, 1943, Pilecki wrote "Raport W". Report was signed by other members of Polish underground cooperating with ZOW: Aleksander Wielopolski, Stefan Bielecki, Antoni Woźniak, Aleksander Paliński, Ferdynand Trojnicki, Eleonora Ostrowska and Stefan Miłkowski. Part of this report were also personal list of ZOW members - "Teren S". Last, over 100 pages report Pilecki prepared in 1945 after release from German prisoner-of-war camp at Murnau. The first publication of Pilecki reports took place in 2000 – 55 years after war.

See also

Further reading

  1. Adam Cyra, Ochotnik do Auschwitz. Witold Pilecki 1901-1948, ISBN 83-912000-3-5, Chrześcijańskie Stowarzyszenie Rodzin Oświęcimskich, Oświęcim 2000
  2. Cyra, Adam Spadochroniarz Urban [Paratrooper Urban], Oświęcim 2005.
  3. Cyra, Adam and Wiesław Jan Wysocki, Rotmistrz Witold Pilecki, Oficyna Wydawnicza VOLUMEN, 1997. ISBN 8386857277
  4. Jacek Pawłowicz, Rotmistrz Witold Pilecki 1901-1948, 2008, ISBN 978-83-60464-97-7.
  5. Foot, Michael Richard Daniell (2003), Six Faces of Courage. Secret agents against Nazi tyranny. Witold Pilecki, Leo Cooper, ISBN 0413394301
  6. Lewis, Jon E. (1999), The Mammoth Book of True War Stories, Carroll & Graf Publishers, ISBN 0786706295
  7. Piekarski, Konstanty R. (1990), Escaping Hell: The Story of a Polish Underground Officer in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Dundurn Press Ltd., ISBN 1550020714
  8. Tchorek, Kamil (March 12, 2009), Double life of Witold Pilecki, the Auschwitz volunteer who uncovered Holocaust secrets, London: The Times, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5891132.ece, retrieved March 16, 2009
  9. Wyman, David S.; Garlinski, Jozef (December 1976), "Review: Jozef Garlinski. Fighting Auschwitz: The Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp", American Historical Review (American Historical Association) 81 (5): 1168–1169, doi:10.2307/1853043, ISSN 00028762
  10. Ciesielski E., Wspomnienia Oświęcimskie [Auschwitz Memoirs], Kraków, 1968
  11. Garlinski, Jozef, Fighting Auschwitz: the Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp, Fawcett, 1975, ISBN 0449225992, reprinted by Time Life Education, 1993. ISBN 0809489252 (see also review in The Times)
  12. Gawron, W. Ochotnik do Oświęcimia [Volunteer for Auschwitz], Calvarianum, Auschwitz Museum, 1992
  13. Patricelli, M. "Il volontario" [The Volunteer], Laterza 2010, ISBN 88-420-9188-X.
  14. Wysocki, Wiesław Jan. Rotmistrz Pilecki, Pomost, 1994. ISBN 8385209425
  15. Kon Piekarski "Escaping Hell: The Story of a Polish Underground Officer in Auschwitz and Buchenwald", Dundurn Press Ltd., 1989, ISBN 1550020714, ISBN 9781550020717

References

  1. ^ Kazimierz Malinowski, Tajna Armia Polska. Znak. Konfederacja Zbrojna. Zarys genezy, organizacji i działalności, Warszawa 1986. ISBN 83-211-0791-5
  2. ^ Jacek Pawłowicz, Rotmistrz Witold Pilecki 1901-1948, 2008, ISBN 978-83-60464-97-7
  3. ^ a b Lewis 1999, p. 390
  4. ^ Lidia Świerczek, Pilecki's life Institute of National Remembrance. Last accessed on 14 March 2009.
  5. ^ Foot, Michael Richard Daniell (2003), Six Faces of Courage. Secret agents against Nazi tyranny. Witold Pilecki, Leo Cooper, ISBN 0413394301
  6. ^ Garlinski, Jozef, Fighting Auschwitz: the Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp, Fawcett, 1975, pgs. 191-197
  7. ^ Adam Cyra, Ochotnik do Auschwitz - Witold Pilecki 1901-48 [Volunteer for Auschwitz], Oświęcim 2000. ISBN 83-912000-3-5
  8. ^ Norman Davies, Europe: A History, Oxford University Press, 1996, ISBN
  9. ^ "Byłem Numerem: swiadectwa Z Auschwitz" by Kazimierz Piechowski, Eugenia Bozena Kodecka-Kaczynska, Michal Ziokowski, Hardcover, Wydawn. Siostr Loretanek, ISBN 83-7257-122-8
  10. ^ "Auschwitz.org.pl". En.auschwitz.org.pl. 2009-01-13. http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=578&Itemid=8. Retrieved 2010-08-23. 

External links