Witold's Report

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Witold Pilecki

Witold's Report, also known as Pilecki's Report, is a report about the

Holocaust death camp to be obtained by the Allies
.

The report includes details about the

Auschwitz II capable of cremating 8,000 people daily.[1]

Pilecki's Report preceded and complemented the

Vrba-Wetzler report; and the Rosin-Mordowicz report.[2]

Background

On 9 November 1939, after the Polish Army had been defeated in the invasion of Poland, Cavalry Captain Witold Pilecki, together with his commander, Major Jan Włodarkiewicz, founded the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska, TAP).[3] In 1940 Pilecki presented to his superiors a plan to enter Germany's Auschwitz concentration camp, gather intelligence on the camp, and organize inmate resistance.[4] At the time, little was known about how the Germans ran the camp, which appeared to operate as an internment, or large prison, camp. Pilecki's superiors approved his plan and provided him with a false identity card in the name of "Tomasz Serafiński".[5] On 19 September 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' detention in the Light Horse Guards Barracks, where prisoners suffered beatings with rubber batons, Pilecki was sent to Auschwitz and was assigned inmate number 4859.[5] [6]

Auschwitz

Inside the camp Pilecki organized an underground military organization (

Związek Organizacji Wojskowej, ZOW), connected with other smaller underground organizations.[7][8]
Pilecki planned a general uprising in
Home Army leaders about his idea of the uprising in Auschwitz. On the night of April 26/27, 1943, Pilecki made a daring escape from the camp, but the Home Army did not accept his insurgency plan, as the Allies considered his reports about the Holocaust exaggerated.[citation needed
]

Report

ZOW's intelligence network inside the camp started to send regular reports to the Home Army starting in October 1940. Beginning in November 1940, the first information about

Auschwitz-Birkenau for the Western Allies.[11]

On June 20, 1942, four Poles, Eugeniusz Bendera [pl], Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster and Józef Lempart, made a daring escape from Auschwitz.[12][13][14] 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 Höss. Jaster, a member of ZOW, carried with him a detailed report about conditions in the camp, written by Pilecki. The Germans never recaptured any of them.[15]

After his own daring escape from Auschwitz on April 27, 1943, Pilecki wrote Raport W. The report was signed by other members of the Polish underground who worked with ZOW: Aleksander Wielopolski, Stefan Bielecki, Antoni Woźniak, Aleksander Paliński, Ferdynand Trojnicki, Eleonora Ostrowska and Stefan Miłkowski, and it included a section called "Teren S" which contained a list of ZOW members. Later, after his release from the German prisoner-of-war camp at Murnau in 1945, Pilecki compiled a version of the report that was over 100 pages long.[16]

The first publication of Witold's Report took place in 2000, 55 years after the war, after it was reconstructed and published by

The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ Hilberg, Raul (1961). The Destruction of the European Jews (2003 republication ed.). Yale University Press. p. 1212.
  2. ISBN 83-85047-60-3
    . The chronological order begins with the 'Polish Major's Report,' Jerzy Tabeau's text from his Polish manuscript, which the ... still in the camp, the memoirs of August Kowalczyk, or the accounts of the late Stanisiaw Chybinski and Witold Pilecki.
  3. ISBN 83-211-0791-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  4. ISBN 978-83-60464-97-7
    .
  5. ^
    ISBN 0-7867-0629-5
    , p. 390
  6. ISBN 978-1-60772-010-2
    .
  7. ^ Świerczek, Lidia. "Rotamaster Witold Pilecki 1901–1948". The Institute of National Remembrance. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  8. ISBN 0-413-39430-1
    .
  9. ^ Garlinski, Jozef (1975). Fighting Auschwitz: The Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp. Fawcett. pp. 191–197.
  10. ISBN 83-912000-3-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  11. ISBN 0-06-097468-0
    .
  12. ^ Wojciech Zawadzki (2012), Przedborski, Słownik Biograficzny, via Internet Archive
  13. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20131103214327/http://www.psbprzedborz.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50%3Abendera-eugeniusz Eugeniusz Bendera (1906-po 1970)
  14. ISBN 83-7257-122-8
  15. ^ "en.auschwitz.org.pl". auschwitz.org.pl. 2009-01-13. Archived from the original on 2011-05-22. Retrieved 2010-08-23.
  16. ^ Pilecki, Witold (25 May 2008). "Witold's Report". Volunteer for Auschwitz. Translated by Kucharski, Jacek (Full Text Online, Translated from Polish for the "LET'S REMINISCE ABOUT WITOLD PILECKI" ("PRZYPOMNIJMY O ROTMISTRZU") initiative ed.). Retrieved August 12, 2015.
  17. ^ Cyra, Adam (26 August 2016). "Raporty rtm. Witolda Pileckiego". dzieje.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2022-02-19.
  18. ^ Foks, Maciej; Cyra, Adam (2020). "Klucz Pileckiego wciąż czeka na odnalezienie". Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (in Polish). Retrieved 2022-02-19.
  19. ^ Tchorek, Kamil (12 March 2009), "Double life of Witold Pilecki, the Auschwitz volunteer who uncovered Holocaust secrets", The Times, London, archived from the original on 10 May 2011, retrieved 16 March 2009
  20. ISBN 978-1-60772-009-6
    .

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 83-86857-27-7
  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 0-413-39430-1
  6. Piekarski, Konstanty R. (1990), Escaping Hell: The Story of a Polish Underground Officer in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Dundurn Press Ltd.,
    ISBN 1-55002-071-4
  7. 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
  8. 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,
    ISSN 0002-8762
  9. Ciesielski E., Wspomnienia Oświęcimskie [Auschwitz Memoirs], Kraków, 1968
  10. ISBN 0-8094-8925-2
  11. Gawron, W. Ochotnik do Oświęcimia [Volunteer for Auschwitz], Calvarianum, Auschwitz Museum, 1992
  12. Patricelli, M. "Il volontario" [The Volunteer], Laterza 2010,
    ISBN 88-420-9188-X
    .
  13. Wysocki, Wiesław Jan.
    ISBN 83-85209-42-5
  14. Kon Piekarski "Escaping Hell: The Story of a Polish Underground Officer in Auschwitz and Buchenwald", Dundurn Press Ltd., 1989,
    ISBN 978-1-55002-071-7
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