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Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki in color.jpg
Pilecki in a colorized pre-1939 photograph
Born(1901-05-13)13 May 1901
Olonets, Olonetsky Uyezd, Olonets Governorate, Russian Empire
Died25 May 1948(1948-05-25) (aged 47)
Mokotów Prison, Warsaw, Poland
Buried
Unknown. Possibly in Powązki Military Cemetery
AllegianceSecond Polish Republic; Polish Government in Exile
Years of service1918–1947
RankCaptain, Cavalry master
Commands heldCommander of the 1st Lidsky Squadron (1932–1937)
Battles/warsPolish–Soviet War

Polish-Lithuanian War

World War II

Awards
Alma materUniversity of Poznań, Faculty of Agriculture (1922) Stefan Batory University, Faculty of Fine Arts (1922–1924)
Spouse(s)
Maria Ostrowska
​
(m. 1931)​
Children2

Witold Pilecki (13 May 1901 – 25 May 1948; Polish pronunciation: [ˈvitɔlt piˈlɛt͡skʲi]; codenames Roman Jezierski, Tomasz Serafiński, Druh, Witold) was a Polish cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader. Early in World War II he co-founded the Secret Polish Army resistance movement.

In 1940 Pilecki volunteered[1][2][3][4] to allow himself to be captured by the occupying Germans in order to infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp.[5] At Auschwitz he organized a resistance movement that eventually included hundreds of inmates, and he secretly drew up reports detailing German atrocities at the camp, which were smuggled out to Home Army headquarters and shared with the Western Allies.[3]

After escaping from Auschwitz, Pilecki fought in the Warsaw Uprising of August–October 1944.

Following its suppression, he was interned in a German prisoner-of-war camp.[6][2] After the communist takeover of Poland he remained loyal to the London-based Polish Government-in-Exile. In 1945 he returned to Poland to report to the Exile Government on the situation in Poland.[2] Before returning, Pilecki wrote Witold's Report on the Auschwitz concentration camp, anticipating that he might be killed by Poland's new communist authorities.[2][7][8][5]

In 1947 he was arrested by the secret police on charges of working for "foreign imperialism"[3] and, after being subjected to torture[2] and a show trial, was executed in 1948. His story remained mostly unknown for several decades; one of the first accounts of Pilecki's mission to Auschwitz was given by Polish historian Józef Garliński, himself a former Auschwitz inmate who emigrated to Britain after the war, in Fighting Auschwitz: The Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp (1975).[9][8]

Poland's Chief Rabbi, Michael Schudrich, writes in the foreword to a 2012 English translation of Pilecki's report: "When God created the human being, God had in mind that we should all be like Captain Witold Pilecki, of blessed memory."[10] Historian Norman Davies writes in the introduction to the same translation: "If there was an Allied hero who deserved to be remembered and celebrated, this was a person with few peers."[11]

Biography

Early life

Pilecki (first right) as a scout, Oryol, Russia, 1917

Witold Pilecki was born on 13 May 1901 in the town of Olonets, Karelia, in the Russian Empire.[12] He was a descendant of a noble family (szlachta) of the Leliwa coat of arms. His ancestors had been deported to Russia for participating in the January 1863–64 Uprising.[13][14] Witold was one of five children of forest inspector Julian Pilecki and Ludwika Osiecimska.[12]

In 1910 Witold moved with his mother and siblings to Wilno, while his father remained in Olonets. In Wilno, Pilecki attended a local school and joined the underground Polish Scouting and Guiding Association (ZHP).[7][12]

In 1916 Pilecki was sent by his mother to a school in the Russian city of Oryol, where he attended a gymnasium (secondary school) and founded a local chapter of the ZHP.[12]

Polish–Soviet War

In 1918, following the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I, Pilecki returned to Wilno (at that time part of the newly independent Polish Second Republic) and joined the ZHP section of the Lithuanian and Belarusian Self-Defense Militia, a paramilitary formation aligned with the White movement under General Władysław Wejtko.[7][12] The militia disarmed the retreating German troops and took up positions to defend the city from a looming attack by the Soviet Red Army. However, Wilno fell to Bolshevik forces on 5 January 1919, and Pilecki and his unit resorted to partisan warfare behind Soviet lines. He and his comrades then retreated to Białystok where Pilecki enlisted as a szeregowy (private) in Poland's newly established volunteer army. He took part in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921, serving under Captain Jerzy Dąbrowski.[12] He fought in the Kiev Offensive (1920) and as part of a cavalry unit defending the city of Grodno. On 5 August 1920, Pilecki joined the 211th Uhlan Regiment and fought in the crucial Battle of Warsaw and in the Rudniki Forest (Puszcza Rudnicka). Pilecki later took part in the liberation of Wilno and briefly served in the ongoing Polish-Lithuanian War as a member of the October 1920 Żeligowski rebellion.[12]

Interwar years

By the end of the conclusion of Polish-Soviet War in March 1921, Pilecki was promoted to the rank of plutonowy (corporal) and was designated as a non-commissioned officer.[15]: 19  Following the war's end, Pilecki was transferred to the army reserves, completing courses required for a non-commissioned officer rank at the Cavalry Reserve Officers' Training School in Grudziądz.[12] He went on to complete his secondary education (matura) later that same year.[14] He briefly enrolled with the Faculty of Fine Arts at Stefan Batory University but was forced to abandon his studies in 1924 due to both financial issues and the declining health of his father.[12] In July 1925 Pilecki was assigned to the 26th Lancer Regiment with the rank of Chorąży (ensign). Pilecki would be promoted to podporucznik (second lieutenant, with seniority from 1923) the following year.[7][12] Also in 1926, in September, Pilecki became the owner of his family's ancestral estate, Sukurcze, in the Lida district of the Nowogródek Voivodeship. In 1931, he married Maria Ostrowska. They had two children, born in Wilno: Andrzej (16 January 1932) and Zofia (14 March 1933). Pilecki was active in the local community, he was the chairman of a dairy and founded a farmer's association. He was also an amateur poet and painter. He organized the Krakus Military Horsemen Training school in 1932 and was appointed to command the 1st Lida Military Training Squadron, which was placed under the Polish 19th Infantry Division in 1937. In 1938, Pilecki received the Silver Cross of Merit for his activism.[7][12]

World War II

Part of a series on the
Polska Walczy Polish
Underground State
Parasol Regiment, Warsaw, 1944
History of Poland 1939–1945
Authorities
Political organizations
Major parties
Minor parties
Opposition
Military organizations
Home Army (AK)
Mostly integrated
with Armed Resistance and Home Army
Partially integrated
with Armed Resistance and Home Army
Non-integrated but recognizing
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Opposition
Related topics

Polish September Campaign

Pilecki was mobilized as a cavalry platoon commander on 26 August 1939. He was assigned to the 19th Infantry Division under General Józef Kwaciszewski, part of the Polish Army Prusy and his unit took part in heavy fighting against the advancing Germans during the invasion of Poland. The 19th Division was almost completely destroyed following a clash with the German forces on the night of 5 to 6 September at the battle of Piotrków Trybunalski.[12] Its remains were incorporated into the 41st Infantry Division, which was withdrawn to the southeast toward Lwów (now L'viv in Ukraine) and the Romanian bridgehead. In the 41st Division, Pilecki served as divisional second-in-command of its cavalry detachment, under Major Jan Włodarkiewicz.[12] He and his men destroyed seven German tanks, shot down one aircraft, and destroyed two more on the ground.[15]: 32 [16] On 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland, which worsened the already desperate situation of the Polish forces. On 22 September, the 41st Division suffered a major defeat and capitulated.[12] Włodarkiewicz and Pilecki were among the many soldiers who did not follow the order of Commander-in-Chief General Edward Śmigły-Rydz to retreat through Romania to France, instead opting to stay underground in Poland.[7]

Resistance

On 9 November 1939 in Warsaw, Major Włodarkiewicz, Second Lieutenant Pilecki, Second Lieutenant Jerzy Maringe, Jerzy Skoczyński, and brothers Jan and Stanisław Dangel founded the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska, TAP), one of the first underground organizations in Poland. Włodarkiewicz became its leader, while Pilecki became organizational commander of TAP as it expanded to cover Warsaw, Siedlce, Radom, Lublin, and other major cities in central Poland.[12] To maintain his cover, Pilecki worked as a manager of a cosmetics storehouse.[12] From 25 November 1939 until May 1940, Pilecki was TAP's inspector and chief of staff; from August 1940, he headed its 1st branch (organization and mobilization).[7]

TAP was based on Christian ideological values.[7] While Pilecki wanted to avert a religious mission so as not to alienate potential allies, Włodarkiewicz blamed Poland's defeat on its failure to create a Catholic nation and wanted to remake the country by appealing to right-wing groups.[17] In the spring of 1940, Pilecki saw that Włodarkiewicz was "flirting with anti-Semitic views"[18] and had put ultranationalist dogma into their newsletter, Znak; Włodarkiewicz had also entered talks about a union with the far-right underground including a group that had offered Nazi Germany a Polish puppet government.[19] To stop him, Pilecki went to Colonel Stefan Rowecki, the chief of TAP's rival resistance group, the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), which called for equal rights for Jews and was focused on intelligence gathering of German atrocities and delivering it by courier missions to the Western Allies in an attempt to gain their involvement. The ZWZ had alerted the Polish Government in exile that the Germans were inciting Polish racial hatred as a diversion from their own crimes, and that a Polish Quisling could emerge as a result.[19]

Pilecki called for TAP to submit to Rowecki's authority, but Włodarkiewicz refused and issued a manifesto that the future Poland had to be Christian, based on national identity, and that those who opposed the idea should be "removed from our lands."[20] Pilecki refused to swear the proposed oath.[21] In August, Włodarkiewicz announced at a TAP meeting that after all they would join the mainstream underground with Rowecki – and that Pilecki had been nominated to infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp.[22] Little was known about how the Germans ran the then-new camp, which was thought to be an internment camp or large prison rather than a death camp.[23] Włodarkiewicz said it was not an order but an invitation to volunteer, although Pilecki saw it as a punishment for refusing to back his ideology. Nevertheless, he agreed.[7][22]

Auschwitz

Main article: Witold's Report

Pilecki was one of 2,000 men arrested on 19 September 1940. He used the identity documents of Tomasz Serafiński, who had been mistakenly assumed to be dead.[23]

Two back-stories exist purporting to explain how Pilecki actually found himself in the Auschwitz concentration camp. In one version, he deliberately volunteered to allow himself to be captured by the occupying Germans in one of their Warsaw street round-ups, in order to infiltrate the camp.[5] In the second version, he was caught in the apartment of Eleonora Ostrowska, at ulica Wojska Polskiego (Polish Army Street), and, along with 1,705 other prisoners, between 21 and 22 September 1940, reached Auschwitz where, under Serafiński's name, he was assigned prisoner number 4859. In autumn 1941 he was promoted to porucznik (first lieutenant).[7]

Witold Pilecki as KL-Auschwitz prisoner, KL Number 4859, 1940

While in various slave labor kommandos and surviving pneumonia at Auschwitz, Pilecki organized an underground Military Organization (ZOW).[12][24] Its tasks were to better inmate morale, provide news from outside, distribute extra food and clothing to its members, set up intelligence networks, and train detachments to take over the camp in the event of a relief attack. ZOW was organized as secret cells, each of five members.[7] Over time, many smaller underground organizations at Auschwitz eventually merged with ZOW.[12][25]

While at Auschwitz, Pilecki secretly drew up reports and sent them to Home Army headquarters. The first dispatch, delivered in October 1940, described the camp and the ongoing extermination of inmates via starvation and brutal punishments; it was used as the basis of a Home Army report on "The Terror and Lawlessness of the Occupiers". Further dispatches of Pilecki's were likewise smuggled out by individuals who managed to escape from Auschwitz. The reports' purpose may have been to get the Home Army command's permission for ZOW to stage an uprising to liberate the camp; however, no such response came from the Home Army.[7] In 1942, Pilecki's resistance movement was also broadcasting details on the number of arrivals and deaths in the camp and the conditions of the inmates using a radio transmitter that was built by camp inmates. The secret radio station was built over seven months using smuggled parts; it was broadcasting from the camp until the autumn of 1942, when it was dismantled by Pilecki's men after concerns that the Germans might discover its location because of "one of our fellows' big mouth".[26]

These reports were a principal source of intelligence on Auschwitz for the Western Allies. Pilecki hoped that either the Allies would drop arms or troops into the camp, or that the Home Army would organize an assault on it from outside.[12][25] Meanwhile, the Camp Gestapo under SS-Untersturmführer Maximilian Grabner redoubled its efforts to ferret out ZOW members, killing many of them.[12][27] To avoid the worst outcome, Pilecki decided to break out of the camp with the hope of convincing Home Army leaders personally that a rescue attempt was a valid option.[12]

On the night of 26–27 April 1943 Pilecki was assigned to a night shift at a camp bakery outside the fence, and he and two comrades managed to force open a metal door, overpower a guard, cut the telephone line, and escape outside the camp perimeter. They left the SS guards in the woodshed, barricaded from outside. Before escaping they cut an alarm wire. They headed east, and after several hours crossed into the General Government, taking with them documents stolen from the Germans. The men fled on foot to the village of Alwernia where they were helped by a priest, and then on to Tyniec where locals assisted them. After that, they reached the Polish resistance safe house near Bochnia, owned, coincidentally, by commander Tomasz Serafiński—the very man whose identity Pilecki had adopted for his cover in Auschwitz.[28][7][29]: 283–300  At one point during the journey, German soldiers attempted to stop Pilecki, firing at him as he fled; several bullets passed through his clothing, while one wounded him without hitting either bones or vital organs.[28]: 297 

Outside Auschwitz

After several days as a fugitive, Pilecki made contact with units of the Home Army.[12][25] In June 1943, in Nowy Wiśnicz, Pilecki drafted an initial report on the situation in Auschwitz. It was buried at the farm where he was staying and was only revealed after his death. In August 1943, back in Warsaw, Pilecki started preparing Witold's Report (Raport W), focused on the Auschwitz underground. It covered three main topics: ZOW and its members; Pilecki's experiences; and to a lesser extent, the extermination of prisoners, including Jews. Pilecki's intent in writing it was to persuade the Home Army to liberate the camp's prisoners. However, the Home Army command rejected this proposal, since the camp's resistance was judged to lack sufficient strength to provide noticeable assistance during such an operation. Even if the initial attack were successful, the resistance lacked sufficient transport capabilities, supplies, and shelter that would be required for rescued inmates.[7] The Soviet Red Army, despite being within attacking distance of the camp, showed no interest in a joint effort with the Home Army and the ZOW to free it.[30]

Shortly after rejoining the resistance, Pilecki became a member of the Kedyw sabotage unit, using the pseudonym "Roman Jezierski". Later he joined a secret anti-communist organization, NIE. On 19 February 1944 he was promoted to cavalry captain (rotmistrz). Until becoming involved in the Warsaw Uprising, Pilecki continued coordinating ZOW and Home Army activities and providing what limited support he could to ZOW.[12]

In Auschwitz, Pilecki had met the author Igor Newerly, whose Jewish wife, Barbara, was hiding in Warsaw. The Newerlys had been working with Janusz Korczak to try to save Jewish lives. Pilecki gave Mrs. Newerly money from the Polish resistance that she passed on to several Jewish families whom she and her husband protected. He also gave her money to pay off her own szmalcownik, or blackmailer, who said he was Jewish and threatened to report her to the Gestapo.[31] The blackmailer disappeared, and it has been said that "it is likely that Witold arranged for his execution".[32]

Warsaw Uprising

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out on 1 August 1944, Pilecki volunteered for service with Kedyw's Chrobry II Battalion. Initially he served as a common soldier in the northern city center, without revealing his rank to his superiors.[12] After many officers were killed in the early days of the uprising, Pilecki revealed his true identity and accepted command of the 1st "Warszawianka" Company deployed in Warsaw's Śródmieście (downtown) district.[12] After the fall of the uprising, he was captured and taken prisoner by the Germans. He survived until liberation in 1945 at Oflag VII-A, in Murnau, Bavaria.[7][12]

After the war

Pilecki, Mokotów Prison, Warsaw, 1947
Pilecki in court, 1948

In July 1945 Pilecki left Murnau and was reassigned to the military intelligence division of the Polish II Corps under General Władysław Anders in Ancona, Italy. In October 1945, as relations between the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet-backed regime of Boleslaw Bierut deteriorated, Pilecki was ordered by General Anders and his intelligence chief, Lt. Colonel Stanisław Kijak, to return to Poland and report on the prevailing military and political situation under Soviet-occupation. By December 1945 he arrived in Warsaw with the mission of gathering intelligence for II Corps, and begun organizing an intelligence gathering network.[7][12] As the NIE organization had been disbanded, Pilecki recruited former ZOW and TAP members and continued sending information to the Polish Government-in-Exile.[12]

To maintain his cover identity, Pilecki lived under various assumed names and changed jobs frequently. He would work as a jewelry salesman, a bottle label painter, and as night manager of a construction warehouse. However, in July 1946 he was informed that his identity had been uncovered by the Ministry of Public Security. General Anders ordered him to leave Poland, but Pilecki refused. In early 1947 his superiors rescinded the order.[12]

Arrested on 8 May 1947 by the communist authorities, Pilecki was tortured but in order to protect other operatives he did not reveal any sensitive information.[12] A show trial took place on 3 March 1948, and testimony against Pilecki was presented by future Polish prime minister Józef Cyrankiewicz, also an Auschwitz survivor. Pilecki was charged with illegal border crossing, use of forged documents, not enlisting with the military, carrying illegal arms, espionage for General Władysław Anders, espionage for "foreign imperialism" (government-in-exile), and planning to assassinate several officials of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland. Pilecki denied the assassination charges, as well as espionage, although he admitted to passing information to the 2nd Polish Corps, of which he considered himself an officer and thus claimed that he was not breaking any laws. He pleaded guilty to the other charges. He was sentenced to death on 15 May with three of his comrades, and despite pleas for pardon from a number of Auschwitz survivors written to Cyrankiewicz among others, Pilecki was executed by Piotr Śmietański with a shot to the back of the head at the Mokotów Prison in Warsaw on 25 May 1948.[7][12][15]: 188, 244 [33][34] Several of Pilecki's affiliates were also arrested and tried around the same time, with at least three executed as well; a number of others received death sentence that were changed into prison sentences.[15]: 161–165  Pilecki's burial place has never been found, though it is thought to be in Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery.[12]

Legacy

Monument to Pilecki, Wieluń – one of several monuments to Pilecki in Poland
Monument to Witold Pilecki in Warsaw

Pilecki's life has been a subject of several monographs. The first in English was Józef Garliński's Fighting Auschwitz: The Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp (1975), followed by M.R.D. Foot's Six Faces of Courage (1978).[8] The first in Polish was the Rotmistrz Pilecki (1995) by Wiesław Jan Wysocki, followed by Ochotnik do Auschwitz. Witold Pilecki 1901–1948 (2000) by Adam Cyra.[7] In 2010 Italian historian Marco Patricelli wrote a book about Witold Pilecki, Il volontario (2010), which received the Acqui Award of History that year.[35][36] In 2012 Pilecki's diary was translated into English by Garliński and published under the title The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery.[37] More recently Pilecki was the subject of Adam J. Koch's 2018 book A Captain’s Portrait: Witold Pilecki – Martyr for Truth[38] and Jack Fairweather's 2019 book The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz, the latter a winner of the Costa Book Award.[8][39][40][41]

From the 1990s, following the fall of communism and Pilecki's rehabilitation, he has been a subject of popular discourse.[7] A number of institutions, monuments, and streets in Poland have been named after him.[8] In 1995 he was awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta, and in 2006 the highest Polish decoration, the Order of the White Eagle.[12] On 6 September 2013 the Minister of National Defence announced his promotion to colonel.[42]

After the fall of communism, a cenotaph to him was erected at Ostrów Mazowiecka Cemetery, and in 2016 a museum, Dom Rodziny Pileckich, was established in that town (though, as of 2020, it had not yet been fully opened to the public).[43][44][45] In 2012 Powązki Cemetery was partly excavated in an effort to find his remains.[46]

The 2006 film Śmierć rotmistrza Pileckiego [pl] ("The Death of Cavalry Captain Pilecki"), directed by Ryszard Bugajski, presents Pilecki as a flawlessly ethical man facing unfounded accusations. The narrative structure is reminiscent of a saint martyrology, with belief in God replaced by belief in Country.[47]

A 2015 film, Pilecki [pl], by Marcin Kwaśny portrays Pilecki as a saint of the Polish independence movement. The sacralization is achieved by recounting verified historical facts, accompanied by dramatized scenes. The film shows Pilecki performing deeds impossible for an ordinary man, while keeping faith with his country even under the direst torture.[47]

References

  1. ^ John Besemeres, "The Worst of Both Worlds: Captain Witold Pilecki between Hitler and Stalin", in A Difficult Neighbourhood: Essays on Russia and East-Central Europe since World War II, Australian National University Press, 2016, p. 66.
  2. ^ a b c d e Snyder, Timothy (22 June 2012). "Were We All People?". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  3. ^ a b c Patricelli, Marco (2010). Il volontario. Laterza. pp. 53–268. ISBN 978-8842091882.
  4. ^ Szumilo, Mirosalw (2018). "Living with the Stigma of a 'Traitor of the Nation': The Plight of the Families of Victims of Stalinist Terror in Poland", in Histories (Un)Spoken: Strategies of Survival and Social-Professional Integration in Political Prisoners' Families in Communist Central and Eastern Europe in the '50s and '60s, edited by C. Budeanca and D Bathory. LIT Verlag. pp. 48–62..
  5. ^ a b c Paliwoda, Daniel (2013). "Captain Witold Pilecki" (PDF). Military Review. 93 (6): 88–96.
  6. ^ Davies, Norman (2004). Rising '44: "The Battle for Warsaw". Pan Books. ISBN 0-333-90568-7.
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  8. ^ a b c d e Fleming, Michael (2019). "The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz: by Jack Fairweather (London: WH Allen, 2019), 505 pages". Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs. 13 (2): 289–294. doi:10.1080/23739770.2019.1673981. S2CID 210468082.
  9. ^ Garliński 1975.
  10. ^ Schudrich, Michael (2014). Foreword to The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery. Aquila Polonica.
  11. ^ Davies, Norman (2014). Introduction to The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery. Aquila Polonica.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag Świerczek, Lidia. "Rotmistrz Witold Pilecki" [Captain Witold Pilecki]. Biogramy IPN (in Polish). Institute of National Remembrance. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
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  19. ^ a b Jack Fairweather (2019). The Volunteer:The true Story of the Resistance Hero Who infiltrated Auschwitz. London: WH Allen. ISBN 978-0753545164. p. 78.
  20. ^ Jack Fairweather (2019). The Volunteer:The true Story of the Resistance Hero Who infiltrated Auschwitz. London: WH Allen. ISBN 978-0753545164. p. 82.
  21. ^ Fleming, Michael (2019). "The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz: by Jack Fairweather (London: WH Allen, 2019), 505 pages". Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs. 13 (2): 289–294. doi:10.1080/23739770.2019.1673981.
  22. ^ a b Jack Fairweather (2019). The Volunteer:The true Story of the Resistance Hero Who infiltrated Auschwitz. London: WH Allen. ISBN 978-0753545164. p. 85.
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  24. ^ Wyman 1976, p. 1168
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  30. ^ Wyman 1976, p. 1169
  31. ^ Jack Fairweather (2019). The Volunteer:The true Story of the Resistance Hero Who infiltrated Auschwitz. London: WH Allen. ISBN 978-0753545164. p. 534.
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  35. ^ "Włoch od rotmistrza Pileckiego". PolskieRadio.pl. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  36. ^ "Albo d'oro - Premio Acqui Storia - Acqui Terme". Premio Acqui Storia - Acqui Terme - Portale del premio Acqui Storia Comune di Acqui Terme (in Italian). 10 October 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
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  40. ^ Cyra, Adam (September 2020). "Review. Jack Fairweather "The Volunteer: The True Story of Witold Pilecki's Secret Mission". Memoria. 36.
  41. ^ "Costa prize: Jack Fairweather wins book of the year with The Volunteer". the Guardian. 28 January 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
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  44. ^ "Ostrów Mazowiecka: pierwsze w Polsce muzeum rotmistrza Pileckiego". serwisy.gazetaprawna.pl (in Polish). 19 October 2020. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
  45. ^ "Pierwsze posiedzenie Rady Muzeum – Dom Rodziny Pileckich z udziałem wicepremiera prof. Piotra Glińskiego". Ministerstwo Kultury, Dziedzictwa Narodowego i Sportu. January 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  46. ^ Puhl, Jan. (9 August 2012) Poland Searches for Remains of World War II Hero Witold Pilecki. Spiegel.de. Retrieved on 19 September 2015.
  47. ^ a b Marczak, Mariola (2018). "Persuasive and Communicative Potential of Hagiographic Narrative Structures in Screen Representations of the Polish Underground Soldiers Struggling for Independence after World War II". Studia Religiologica. 51 (2): 115–128. doi:10.4467/20844077SR.18.008.9506.

Bibliography and further reading

External links

source: https://web.archive.org/web/20220217111313/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki

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