Cold Open

It’s September 19th, 1940 in Warsaw, Poland.

39-year-old Witold Pilecki quickens his pace as he runs through the back streets of the city.

Slipping down an alleyway, he emerges in the middle of a large crowd. It’s the beginning of a march by other Polish citizens protesting against the year-old occupation of their country by Nazi Germany. Witold tries to blend into the crowd, just one more face among thousands.

The roads become clogged with more and more people. The protestors themselves are peaceful, even though they know the response from the Germans will not be. And sure enough, further down the street, the path is blocked by a row of German military vehicles. The crowd comes to a halt as waves of gray uniformed soldiers pour out of the trucks.

The Germans then move toward the protestors. The crowd around Witold begins to break apart, with some peeling off into side streets to escape arrest.

Witold tries to run as well, but he doesn’t make it far. He’s intercepted by a group of soldiers, and the muzzle of a gun in his face and the snarl of a dog straining against its chain, convince Witold to end his escape attempt.

He raises his hands in surrender, and soldiers wrestle him to the ground.

But unlike many of his fellow protestors, Witold accepts his fate with uncanny calmness. The truth is, he wasn’t just a protestor. Witold is also a second lieutenant in the Polish army. He is here on a secret mission, and being arrested is the first step to success.

For several months, Polish resistance forces fighting against the German occupation have been aware of a concentration camp in southern Poland. They know little of what's happening behind its gates, though, and have requested a volunteer to find out.

It’s a dangerous mission, but that hasn’t put off Witold Pilecki. He’s determined to serve his country in its hour of need in whatever way he can. But nothing can prepare him for the horrors he will witness at Auschwitz Concentration Camp after he deliberately allows himself to be arrested on September 19th, 1940.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is September 19th, 1940: The Volunteer Prisoner of Auschwitz.

Act One

It’s December 31st, 1918, in the city of Vilnius in Lithuania, 22 years before the arrest of Witold Pilecki.

His breath fogging in the freezing air, a young Witold holds his rifle steady as a small group of weary German troops trudge toward him through the snow. It’s almost two months since Germany’s surrender brought an end to World War I, but some of its soldiers have yet to find their way home.

18-year-old Witold is a member of a Polish militia unit. They have been tasked with disarming the German forces who have occupied Vilnius during the war. The freezing Germans look far from happy at the idea of handing over their guns, so Witold is taking no chances - he keeps his finger near the trigger and watches carefully until the last weapon is handed over, and the German soldiers are walking away.

And though the Germans may be retreating, that doesn’t mean the fighting is over. Another army is hoping to take advantage of the power vacuum left at the end of the war. The forces of Bolshevik Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin are on the march. Reports indicate they’re heading toward Vilnius. So, Witold and his fellow militiamen will soon need all the weapons they’ve just confiscated.

But the battle over his city doesn’t last long. In early January 1919, just days after the Germans abandoned their occupation, the Bolsheviks take Vilnius.

For the next few years, Witold and the rest of his militia mount daring raids and lightning attacks against the Russians and their brave guerilla-style warfare eventually pays off in March 1921, when the Poles reach a peace agreement with Lenin’s forces.

By then, Witold’s efforts have been rewarded with a promotion to Corporal. But in the years of relative calm that follow, he transfers to the Army Reserves and devotes himself to more peaceful pastimes.

Witold returns to Vilnius, where he marries and has two children. He becomes a pillar of his local community as well as an enthusiastic amateur poet and painter. But it isn’t long before the drums of war are beating once again.

In the 1930s, tensions mount between Poland and neighboring Germany. The new Nazi ruler of Germany, Adolf Hitler, passes laws stripping Jewish people of their rights. Many of those affected are Polish people living in Germany. And in October 1938, the Germans go a step further and expel over 17,000 Polish Jews from their country.

Though this is just a taste of what is to come. Hitler makes no secret of his ultimate plans - he wants to expand the borders of Germany’s empire and reclaim territories that it has not governed for years, including Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia.

Amid growing speculation of just how far Hitler might go, Polish forces are mobilized and put on standby. Men like Witold Pilecki are soon asked to protect the country once again.

So, in August 1939, Witold is made a cavalry troop leader, only weeks ahead of the Nazi invasion of Poland.

Although men like Witold fight bravely, the Polish forces are hopelessly outnumbered - the situation then gets even worse, when after the Nazis invade the country from the West, the Soviets invade from the East. Adolf Hitler has made a secret pact with Soviet Premier Josef Stalin. And now, the two dictators’ armies are carving up Poland between them.

After a series of crushing defeats for Polish forces, the capital of Warsaw surrenders to German troops at the end of September 1939. The Polish Commander-in-Chief orders his remaining troops to flee Poland and retreat to France through neighboring countries like Romania. But Witold and many others refuse to leave their home.

And as German troops seize control of the west of the country, Witold keeps his head down and takes a job as the manager of a warehouse. But it's only a cover. Because secretly, he joins the growing Polish resistance movement fighting against the German occupation.

It’s while working with this organization that Witold first hears about a prison camp that the Germans have set up. Situated in the south of occupied Poland, close to the city of Krakow, its name is Auschwitz.

What goes on there is shrouded in secrecy, and the Polish Resistance wants to find out more. So, when volunteers are requested to infiltrate the camp, Witold will step forward. His mission will take him into the dark heart of the Nazi regime and put him in more danger than he has ever faced before.

Act Two

It’s September 21st, 1940, near the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland, 48 hours after Witold Pilecki’s arrest.

Witold shifts uncomfortably in a packed train compartment. Pressed close around him are countless other men and women who've also been arrested by the Nazis. The smell of so many bodies crammed into such a tight space is overpowering, but Witold knows that what waits for them out in the fresh air is likely to be worse.

Armed with a fake name, Witold is on a mission for the Polish Resistance. His orders are to infiltrate the camp at Auschwitz and somehow smuggle intelligence back to his superiors about what is really happening behind its barbed wire fences.

Witold winces as the train compartment is opened and light floods inside. German guards bark orders as the Polish prisoners spill out of the carriage onto the ground beside the tracks.

Witold and the others are then marched from the railroad into the camp. Tall red-brick buildings loom over them as the guards separate the newcomers into groups. Witold soon finds himself in a large bathroom along with a hundred others. Here, uniformed guards tell him to put anything he’s carrying into a bag. He's then forced to line up and have his head shaved, before being doused in cold water.

Then a tattoo is carved into Witold’s arm. From now on, he no longer has a name here. He is simply prisoner number 4859.

Many who have made the journey here before Witold have already perished. Some are the victims of warped experiments with deadly chemicals, conducted under the guise of research. Others have been starved or worked to death, their bodies disposed of via cremation.

And after his processing, Witold is also soon put to work. He’s forced to do hard manual labor. But although he’s exhausted at the end of every day, Witold doesn’t forget why he’s been sent to the camp. He wastes no time in marshaling an underground resistance movement in Auschwitz. Together with other like-minded inmates, Witold does what he can to keep up morale, sneaking extra food and clothing to those who need it, and sharing whatever news he hears from outside the camp.

Witold is under no illusion as to what will happen if he is caught by the guards - he will be executed like so many others before him. But Witold is not deterred by the danger.

And a month after he arrives, he gets his first opportunity to smuggle information out of the camp. He learns of an escape attempt and entrusts a written report to the man planning to break out. It will be the first of many dispatches, each more harrowing than the last.

And as the war drags on, the atrocities Witold writes about only become more horrifying. By 1942, the camp has been expanded to include a secondary site at nearby Birkenau. There, large gas chambers are used to murder thousands of mostly Jewish men, women, and children every day. Their bodies are burned in vast ovens, belching foul-smelling smoke that hangs over the surrounding area. The camp has become a death factory.

For a man of action though, it’s tough for Witold to see such atrocities and be powerless to stop them, so he starts to plan a more offensive course of action. He begins training small cells of no more than five people each. He wants to be ready so that if the chance comes, they can try to take the camp by force.

Witold also works on a new method of contacting the outside world. He manages to smuggle components into the camp to build a radio transmitter. It takes seven months to put together, but when complete, it allows him to broadcast conditions in the camp, along with estimated numbers of arrivals and deaths.

By 1943, though, it’s clear that the Germans have learned of Witold’s underground organization. The German secret police, known as the Gestapo, is slowly dismantling his carefully built network, compromising cell after cell and executing Witold’s comrades. With the net closing in, Witold decides that there is no more good he can do in Auschwitz. What he’s learned already is too valuable to risk losing. And if he’s discovered, all his work will have been for nothing. But if he can get away now, perhaps he will be able to convince his superiors to do something more about the camp and help those suffering and dying behind its walls.

Act Three

It’s April 27th, 1943 at Auschwitz, two and a half years after Witold Pilecki’s arrival at the concentration camp.

In a camp bakery just outside the fence, Witold and two other prisoners make to a shadowy corner of the room. Wires snake down the wall here - cables for the bakery’s phone line and alarm system. Witold pulls out a makeshift blade from his pocket and saws through them.

Then, he gestures for the other men to follow him over to the locked front door. He's managed to obtain a duplicate of the key, but just as he is about to slide it into the lock - he hears a sound. The three men drop to the floor as a German guard passes through the bakery on his rounds.

Witold knows if they’re caught, they’ll almost certainly be executed. So, on his signal, he and his fellow prisoners leap up, and take the guard by surprise.

They overpower the man and tie him up. And before anyone else can come looking for the missing guard, Witold hurries back to the door with his key. Unlocking it, he sneaks out of the bakery and disappears with the other men into the night. After a little over two and a half years in Auschwitz, Witold is a free man once more.

He makes his way back to the headquarters of the Polish Resistance, and files one last comprehensive report on the atrocities he witnessed at Auschwitz, hoping to convince the Resistance to launch an attack on the camp and free the prisoners. But his superiors decide the mission is too dangerous.

Meanwhile, the war rages on and Witold continues to do his part. He takes up arms again, and in 1944, joins an uprising in Warsaw against the German occupation. For two months, he fights through the streets of the city. But once again the efforts of the brave Poles are not enough. The Germans crush the rebellion, leaving Warsaw in ruins, and Witold in captivity once again. He spends the remainder of the war in a POW camp.

He survives this second stint as a prisoner, but his hopes of a life in a free Poland will be dashed. In the post-war world, the Soviet Union will quickly move to dominate Eastern Europe, and a Communist regime will take power in Poland. Witold won’t be trusted by these new leaders, and he will be arrested in May 1947 and executed in a Warsaw prison.

From World War One to World War Two, from Vilnius to Warsaw, Witold Pilecki fought for his country, and his thanks was an executioner’s bullet. But Witold will not be forgotten and when the Communist regime falls, he will be celebrated as a Polish hero - a man whose bravery and patriotism was demonstrated most of all when he volunteered to enter Auschwitz and let himself be arrested by German troops on September 19th, 1940.

Outro

Next on History Daily. September 20th, 1973. Tennis player Billie Jean King takes on self-styled male chauvinist Bobby Riggs in a much-hyped “Battle of the Sexes.”

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Rob Scragg.

Edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.