The terrifying story of the man who voluntarily joined a death camp

Witold Pilecki, a Polish officer, voluntarily went to the hell of Auschwitz (concentration and extermination camp) where he remained for nine hundred and forty-seven days.

Le Monde retraces this incredible, frightening, and true story. A brilliant Polish officer, "a great athlete and exceptional organiser," who implemented "innovative social ideas in the young independent Poland," created the secret Polish army in 1939. As thousands of elite members were deported to Auschwitz by the Germans, Witold Pilecki decided to infiltrate the place, whose function still remained a mystery, sensing that something serious was about to happen. The aim? To witness, report... raise awareness among the resistance within the country as well as the allies.

To see everything, to report everything, alongside death

It all begins on 19 September 1939 when he voluntarily allowed himself to be captured at his sister-in-law's house by the Gestapo. "Prisoner number 4859, with the red triangle of political detainees on his chest, would, until his escape in late April 1943, see everything, note everything, narrowly escape death several times, organise an effective resistance cell with a surprising recruitment method," reports Le Monde, and then finally find a way out of the camp. All this being clearly detailed in reports sent to London and Warsaw, which dismissed, with a wave of the hand, the Polish officer's call to "bomb the camp."

No mobilisation of the allies

Pilecki was be the first man to denounce the gassing methods used "from September 1941 on Soviet prisoners of war". Despite the atrocities reported, the allies wouldn't mobilise themsleves. His testimony would only be published in a book The Pilecki Report in 2014 in France. Following his escape, the officer would join military intelligence, be sent to Warsaw in 1945, then arrested by the Soviets against whom he fought, and executed in May 1948. Chilling facts, right to the end.

(MH with Manon Pierre - Source: Le Monde -Illustration: ©Unsplash)