History is full of cases like the one we are dealing with today. Often little known, in others directly ignored, but which represented an important change in the historical future. Its protagonists were people like Witold Pilecki . This is the story of him.
Pilecki was born in 1901 in Olonets, in what is now Russian Karelia. His family had been sent there by the Russian authorities, as punishment for having participated in the Polish uprising of 1863. In 1918, during the First World War, he would join the Polish units defending Wilno. He then he would remain in the Polish army fighting in different campaigns against Russia.
In World War II, already with the rank of commander, he participated in the defense against the Nazi invasion. And once they were defeated he founded the Polish Secret Army, a resistance organization that operated in the main cities of Poland under occupation.
In 1940 it occurred to him that he could infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp , in order to gather information and organize an internal resistance movement. He drew up a plan and communicated it to his superiors. What no one knew until then was what really happened in camps like Auschwitz. Both the Polish resistance and the allies had no idea of the horrors taking place there, thinking that they were just large-scale prison camps. It is possible that if he had known he would have thought twice.
The fact is that his plan was approved. He was given a new identity as Tomasz Serafinski, and on September 19, 1940, he allowed himself to be captured by the Germans and sent to Auschwitz. Once inside he organized a resistance and intelligence movement, which began to send reports and information to Warsaw, which were then forwarded to the British intelligence services. This is how the Allies learned what was really going on in Auschwitz.
When Pilecki realized that neither the Polish resistance nor the Allies had any intention of storming the camp and freeing the prisoners, he decided to strike out. On the night of April 26, 1943, he escaped with two companions, but not before stealing a good handful of Nazi documents.
After the war he continued to carry out clandestine activities, this time against the Soviet occupation. He is arrested on May 8, 1947, accused of spying for the Polish government in exile, and sentenced to death. The sentence would be carried out on May 25, 1948.
In 1995 the Polish government awarded him the Medal of Merit, and in 2003 the prosecutor in the trial who convicted him and several other officials involved were charged with complicity in his death. His grave was never found.