Witold Pilecki

1901 – 1948

Witold Pilecki was a Polish cavalry officer and resistance leader who in 1940 voluntarily allowed himself to be captured and sent to Auschwitz in order to gather intelligence and organize resistance inside the camp. Over nearly three years of imprisonment he authored the first systematic reports to the Allies documenting the gas chambers and mass extermination, before escaping in 1943 and rejoining the Polish underground. Arrested by the Stalinist Polish secret police after the war for his loyalty to the Polish government-in-exile, he was tortured, convicted in a show trial, and executed in 1948.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM