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The term hero is all too often casually used, but if any person ever deserved the title it is the man who stands defiantly as his sentence is read. He has risked death so many times, and suffered so much, that he has little left to fear from the usurpers of his country. The months of brutal torture that preceded his trial make it difficult for him to stand, but he will not show weakness before his accusers or his comrades. He glances down at the number badly tattooed on his forearm in blue ink, 4859, and remembers what he has sacrificed. The man, who spent 947 days in Auschwitz told his wife on her one visit to his prison “compared with them, Auschwitz was a trifle.” Unlike every other victim of Auschwitz, he volunteered to enter the camp to try to save others. His trial was always meant to be political theater rather then a search for justice. All he had done for his fellow countrymen mattered for nothing; indeed, it was why he had to die. The man is a dangerous symbol of what his country could be and people like him must be disgraced and destroyed. As his guilty verdict and death sentence are read aloud there is no surprise from anyone in the courtroom. The decision was made under the pressure of foreign influence long before, but even show trials must conform to people’s expectations. After the death sentence is read, he responds to the Court that “[i]'ve been trying to live my life so that in the hour of my death I would rather feel joy than fear.” He had not long to wait for the hour of his death. Seven of his comrades would also be sentenced to death that day, among the thousands who would suffer the same fate in trials much like his. The man’s name is Witold Pilecki and within two months he will be murdered by the Polish Secret Police on behalf of the nation he fought so hard to free.

           Witold Pilecki was born on May 13, 1901, in what was at the time the Russian Empire, but would become an independent Poland following the World War I. He was commissioned an officer in the Polish Calvary and was decorated for gallantry in the Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921). This was the first but not the last time he would fight against the Soviet Union. In 1939 when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invade Poland, Pilecki, having obtained the rank of Captain, again fought with distinction. Despite Poland’s stubborn resistance its cause was hopeless, and its field armies were either defeated or forced to flee. Unlike many other conquered nations in World War II, Poland never surrendered, rather its government and many of its soldiers relocated to France and then Britain and would continue to make contributions to the Allied war effort in exile. Pilecki went into hiding in Poland and was one of the founders of the Polish resistance known as the Home Army. In spite of not being as well-known as other resistance movements, this was by far the largest, best organized, and most helpful resistance movement in the Allied cause.  

In 1940 the Home Army began to hear unsettling rumors about the treatment of prisoners at what they believed to be a work camp for Polish political prisoners: Auschwitz. Stories of atrocities being committed against his countrymen caused Pilecki to volunteer to enter the camp. His mission was to gather information about the conditions, organize a resistance within the camp, and discover if an uprising might be practical. Pilecki forged identification papers, hiding his true identity, and arranged to be in a Warsaw district that the SS were planning to raid. He allowed himself to be arrested and was deported to Auschwitz along with approximately 2,000 other Poles. They were not charged with any crime but being Polish, which was enough under German law. The Home Army suspected Auschwitz was hellish, but the truth was worse than anyone could have imagined. 

           At the time Pilecki entered Auschwitz it had not yet become the extermination camp that would later horrify the world, but it was a slave labor camp where large scale death was not only expected but encouraged. Pilecki had prepared himself for brutal treatment but the violence of the place was shocking even to him. Ten men were chosen at random from his train and immediately shot as a message to the others. The rest were beaten savagely and asked their trade. Any suspected of being educated or of having Jewish ancestry were beaten, usually to death. Pilecki was lucky by comparison, he was beaten, robbed, stripped, and given the uniform of a prisoner. It was then that he was assigned, and tattooed with, the only identity he would have for the next two and a half years; Inmate 4859.

Despite the starvation rations, the disease, the beatings, and other horrors Pilecki did not forget his mission. He started small, finding a few resistance fighters he had known from before and bringing them into his cause. He began forming cells of five men who had no knowledge of any other cells in the camp. From these humble beginnings he was able to recruit more than one thousand recruits and get some of them into important positions. They gathered information on the changes in the camp. While Pilecki was there the camp was transformed into an extermination center for European Jews and other groups as well as becoming the center for shocking medical experiments and other horrors seemingly beyond count. Pilecki gathered this information and complied reports that were smuggled out of the camp. These reports made there way to the Home Army, then to the Polish Government in Exile, and lastly on to the British. Pilecki’s reports are some of the earliest and most detailed accounts that the Allies received about the extermination of Europe’s Jews, the existence of the camp’s gas chambers, and the operations of death camps like Auschwitz. In his first report Pilecki urged the Allies to bomb Auschwitz even if it meant the death of every prisoner, including himself. He hoped that such a bombing would prevent more deaths than would occur if the camp continued to operate. The Allies chose to believe that the reports were exaggerations and refused to act. At least 1.1 million people would be murdered in Auschwitz, likely many more, the vast majority after the Allies had his report. Pilecki also tried to encourage efforts to coordinate an uprising with an attack of either the Home Guard or Allied forces but none ever materialized.

           Inside the camp Pilecki and his men tried to make life as bearable as possible for their countrymen. They stole food and cloths, hid the injured and sick, relayed news from the outside world through a radio, tried to raise moral, and when possible sabotaged the operation of the camp. Pilecki helped other prisoners escape who were in greater danger then himself, even giving up his own planned escape routes. He became very frustrated by the inaction of the Allies and the Home Guard. The resistance in the camp had no way of knowing if his messages were getting through or if they had why they were not being acted upon. After more than two years of enduring the horrors of the camp it became clear that an uprising from within was not possible. The inmates needed outside help to have any chance. Pilecki and other high-ranking members of the resistance decided Pilecki should attempt escape and try to plead their case in person. On the night of April 26, 1943, Pilecki and two comrades overpowered an SS guard and made good their escape. This was no small feat as very few people successfully escaped Auschwitz, many who did so managed only with the help of Pilecki and his resistance members. Pilecki was able to rejoin the Home Army but was disappointed. His superior, who had sent him on this mission, had been arrested and the new higher-ups were not inclined to act upon his reports. He wanted to attack Auschwitz and give the inmates a chance to flee in the confusion but his superior thought it beyond their force’s capabilities. He wrote out a last complete report and it was again sent to the Allies, but it fell on deaf ears. Auschwitz would not be liberated until 1945.

           Despite his efforts in Auschwitz, Pilecki was not content sit out the rest of the war. Soviet successes on the Eastern Front brought their forces to the outskirts of Warsaw in the summer of 1944. The Home Army had long planned, along with Allied support, an uprising centered in Warsaw when the Allied forces approached. This was to be a major military operation to liberate Poland, supported by Polish troops abroad and the Allies. The Soviets encouraged the Poles to rise as they approached the city. Pilecki joined the Home Guard units in the city and again fought with distinction. The Poles rose up and retook nearly all of the city despite being vastly short of supplies, especially weapons. There was a problem though. The Soviets did not want Poland to free itself and the Home Guard was not a Communist organization; they were the main rival of the pro-communist forces the Soviets wished to rule Poland. So, the Soviets stopped their advance and prevented the other Allies from providing the promised support to the Home Army. It was a win-win for the Soviets, as the Poles occupied the Germans, and the Germans would kill the people most likely to cause the Soviets problems post war. The fighting in Warsaw was savage and Germany had to commit elite troops it desperately needed elsewhere to put down the uprising. Without outside help, the Home Army was doomed but they would fight on, street to street, for sixty-three days while the Soviets looked on. The city was almost entirely destroyed, and an estimated 180,000 Poles were killed before the uprising and German revenge killings were over. Pilecki was conspicuous throughout the fighting, before being taken prisoner at the end of the uprising. He was lucky to not be sent back to Auschwitz and was taken to the Murnau prisoner of war camp.

           Germany’s defeat in WWII did not mean liberation for most of Eastern Europe, including Poland. The Soviet Union, having lost more then 20 million of its citizens during the war, had no intention of surrendering the territory it had won. It saw states like Poland as not only a buffer against future Western aggression but satellite states to spread Communism. Since the Red Army controlled Poland there was little to stop Stalin from installing a puppet Soviet-backed Communist government in Poland. The Polish government in exile was sidelined and given no say in how Poland would be ruled post war despite being an Allied power during the war. But the struggle was not over. Pilecki, after being liberated by the Americans in 1945, was assigned to the Polish Second Corp in Italy. This army was made up of Polish soldiers, who had been Soviet POWs, until the Soviet Union joining the Allies required them to be released (Russia invaded Poland two weeks after the Germans in 1939 dooming any hope of Poland defending itself against Germany). They had fought extensively in the Italian campaign and were still loyal to the Government in Exile. Pilecki was again asked to go behind enemy lines in Poland and gather information for the Government in Exile.

           Pilecki returned to Warsaw and began reestablishing his contacts with the Home Guard and survivors of Auschwitz. He worked to gather information about Soviet activities and coercion that allowed the puppet Polish Communist government to take power. In 1946, it became clear that Pilecki’s cover had been blown and that the Polish Secret Police were aware of his activities. He was ordered to leave Poland by the commander of the Polish Second Corp, General Władysław Anders, but his reply moved his superiors, “I will stay. All cannot leave, somebody must remain regardless of consequences.” The order was rescinded and Pilecki was arrested soon after. He was taken to Mokotów Prison in Warsaw where he would suffer worse treatment then he had even in Auschwitz. He was systematically tortured by experienced and well-trained interrogators for more than six months. His jailers wanted him to reveal other people loyal to the Government in Exile. While Pilecki eventually was made to sign a confession detailing his supposed crimes, his torturers were never able to get him to provide evidence on others. 

His trial began on March 3, 1948. He was accused of illegal border crossing, using forged documents, not enlisting in the army, carrying an illegal weapon, espionage for General Anders, espionage for foreign imperialism, creating a spy network, and planning assassinations of Communist Party functionaries. Pilecki had crossed into Poland with the full knowledge of the Polish Government in Exile, they knew he was using forged papers, he was a Captain in their military, and he was gathering information of the behalf of the government of Poland. Therefore, Pilecki argued his conduct was not espionage. He denied the accusation of planning assassinations and no evidence was produced to that effect at his trial. Of course, none of this mattered to his Soviet-backed jailers. He was a servant of the wrong Polish Government and the Soviet Union had no intention of ever allowing the Free Polish government to return from exile. The Court refused to allow his reports from Auschwitz into evidence and took no notice of his actions on behalf of Poland during the war. The witnesses against Pilecki and his fellow Defendants said all the right things and eight days later the Court declared them all guilty. Pilecki was convicted by the Court, for acting “[a]s a paid agent of General Anders' Intelligence Service, he organized a spy network on Polish territory, collecting information and sending it abroad, betraying state secrets.” His trial, like so many others targeting former Home Army members, was a calculated terror tactic to suppress opposition to Soviet rule. Such tactics proved extremely effective. No account of Pilecki’s final moments survives. Records show he was shot in the back of the head, the method of execution preferred by Soviet Secret Police, on May 22, 1948. His body was disposed of in an unmarked grave to prevent it becoming a symbol. His final resting place is still unknown.

           

           Pilecki’s two children grew up thinking their father was a traitor. They were not told the truth because it was too dangerous, lest they say something complimentary about him to the wrong person. Talking about such heroes was not done behind the Iron Curtain. Almost immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, efforts were launched to rehabilitate him. His reports about Auschwitz were published and an English translation can be found under the title of “The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery.” He and many of his Home Guard comrades were posthumously exonerated in 1990. Pilecki was promoted to the rank of Colonel and given a slew of posthumous awards. He became the symbol the Soviets always feared he would be.   

           In preparing a presentation for this years Law Day, the topic of which is the rule of law, I kept thinking of examples like Pilecki. Poland in 1948 was not governed by the rule of law. Trials were decided not by evidence and due process but by the will of the State. Pilecki was not guilty of any crimes against the proper government of Poland. But it was not only convenient that he die, but necessary for the Polish Communist Party to thrive. While it is true that much evil can be done even within the bounds of the law, it is still a powerful check on such abuses. I would like to believe that a fair Polish Court not dominated by fear of the Soviets, could not have found a man like Pilecki guilty. History is filled with show-trials like the one that condemned Pilecki. Many tyrants have seen the value of perverting the judicial process to add a veneer of legitimacy to their evils. We are lucky to live within a society where the rule of law means something; we should do all we can to ensure it remains so.