Over at my blog, I noticed a commenter’s screen name. It was unfamiliar but, given the avatar, I assumed it had some historical significance. I looked it up.
Captain Witold Pilecki
I am almost ashamed that I had never heard of this man before, because based just on the Wikipedia entry, Pilecki was a total badass. He fought the Soviets in the Polish-Soviet War. He fought in World War 2, including with the Tajna Armia Polska, (Secret Polish Army; which he helped found), the resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Just what I’ve read so far is fascinating; I’m going to be learning more about him. But let me drop two exploits from his life that are germane to The Zelman Partisans.
Witold Pilecki volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz. Not to find out what was going on in the camp. He knew; some of it, at least. He went to gather proof to be presented to the Allies. He volunteered to go into a death camp to try to help those imprisoned there. They smuggled in radio parts and built a transmitter in the camp and broadcast intel about camp activities.
And he escaped more than two years later. With German documents he’d somehow gotten hold of.
Some might think that was enough for one war. Think again.
He went to the Warsaw Ghetto, and fought in the uprising.
And survived.
As I said, I’m still learning about Pilecki. I do know that he was executed by the Soviet puppet government of Poland in 1948.
For working against the Soviets.
“I’ve been trying to live my life so that in the hour of my death I would rather feel joy, than fear.”
– Pilecki, after being sentenced to death
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited, and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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