Why Is Witold Pilecki A Polish Hero

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Witold Pilecki-Polish Hero World War II started, and on September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. On that day Witold Pilecki, a captain in the Polish Army didn’t know he would become one of the greatest heroes of the war! With no concern for his personal safety, he was the first to let the world know, the secrets of the Holocaust. He was born in 1901 and was still a teenager when he went to fight in World War I. During the war, he was in many dangerous situations and could have been killed many of times. Lucky for Poland he survived and returned home to finish school. After school, he joined the Polish Army again and went to officer training and over the next several years, he was promoted to the rank of Captain. When World War II started, Poland was defeated in just a few weeks. Pilecki helped form the Secret Polish Army to fight back and by 1940 they had 8,000 men (jewishvirtuallibrary.org). …show more content…

People didn’t know much about it and thought it was just a camp for the war prisoners. Nobody knew it was really a “death camp” for the Jewish people. Pilecki came up with a plan to get arrested to find out what was actually going on in the camp. His commander though it was crazy, but finally gave his okay. They gave him a fake ID with the name of “Tomasz Serafinski”. On September 19, 1940 he went out at night and got caught by the Germans. He was beaten for two days, where he was later sent to the Auschwitz camp. His plan was a success and became prisoner “4859” (Real