This wartime memorial sprang up in the Zoliborz district of Warsaw recently. As soon as I saw the name Witold Pilecki, I had to check out what his story was:
From the memorial, it was obvious that Pilecki was a wartime hero who'd played some kind of significant role at combating the Auschwitz death camp.
And on the Internet, I found the following information about Pilecki's involvement in the 2nd World War:
* He was a cavalry officer in the Polish Army and co-founder of the Secret Polish Army in German occupied Poland
* He provided the first comprehensive Allied intelligence report on the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Holocaust (he volunteered to go inside Auschwitz as a prisoner to gather such information, and ended up being imprisoned there for over two years before he escaped in 1943)
* He was a combatant during the Warsaw Uprising (August-October 1944)
* He remained loyal to the London-based, Polish government in exile after the Soviet-backed communist takeover of Poland
Pilecki was also a devout Catholic which may well have helped drive his heroic wartime actions.
However, in 1947, he was arrested by the communist secret police on charges of working as a spy for 'foreign imperialism' (British intelligence) and was executed after a show trial in 1948.
Moreover, until 1989, information about his exploits and fate was suppressed by the communist authorities in Poland.
The information above the pictures only comes from a few basic Internet accounts about Pilecki's life. It would be interesting to read something more detailed about his life.
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