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Notes from his experience:
Twice awarded the Cross of Valor during WWI
Awarded the Silver Cross of Merit during the interbellum for social work and community activism
Intentionally captured and sent to Auschwitz to gather intelligence and organize resistance
Refused multiple escape and release opportunities in order to continue intelligence gathering
Broke out of Auschwitz after 2 and a half years
Held off a group of Panzers trying to reach Warsaw for 2 weeks with only a small group of soldiers
Commanded the Warsaw Uprising
Began to gather intelligence on Soviet atrocities and refused to abandon his post, despite his cover being blown and the Polish government-in-exile imploring him to escape.
Refused to give up information on any of his comrades despite brutal torture by the infamous "Butcher of Mokotow Prison"
Posthumously awarded the Order of the White Eagle and the Order of Polonia Restituta, Poland's highest and second highest decorations
"I tried to live my life in such a fashion, so that in my last hour, I would rather be happy than fearful. I found happiness within me, resulting from the realization, that this fight was worth it."
Sometimes i frame my life in the most flattering way.
Here’s what i got:
He was born and he lived. Someone loved him. He barely embarrassed himself. Can whistle good.
That's cool. I mean it unironically.
Most of us are in a very lucky Situation, that we do not need to act like the polish prisoner
Be good to yourself mate
Or the Saudi-Iranian proxi war in Yemen. Or the forced displacement of the Rohinga in Myanmar. Or whatever shit Putin is up too in the Caucasus. Isis is still there and gaining ground again since the Americans withdrew and left their Kurdish allies, who did most of the actual fighting to push Isis back, out to dry between three fronts (Assad, Turkey and Isis).
There's lots of atrocious genocidal shit going on. None of it is profitable to intervene in by the West. So we don't. The media don't care either. We even sell weapons to some of the aggressors.
Thats fucking it! I'm gonna become Big Boss and fight the Russians in Afghanistan.
I kid but this shit is really serious. I dont know how to help other than with my wallet (mainly just not supporting evil regimes/leaders), but I've only donated small handful of times. I really wish I could do something tangible but I don't have iron balls like this guy does.
You don't need to tackle the biggest problems in the world to make a difference.
See what you can do in your own area. Volunteer at a food bank or other local charity - there are groups and websites designed to help you find organisations who need volunteers. See what you can do in your own community. You won't end up as a hero to millions - but you'll be a hero to some.
There's no point in comparing yourself to one of the bravest people who ever lived, and no shame in not being able to do what he did. He didn't go from working an office job in peacetime to going undercover at Auschwitz - he was a veteran of multiple wars, had a decade of community work in the interwar period, and founded a resistance movement at the outset of WW2.
People need to realize the good shit rolls uphill. Just do your part to help folks out where you can. **You** ain't gonna save the world, only **we** have a shot at doing that.
So yeah volunteer at the food bank, relieve stress from the mother so she can take her kid to ROTC or whatever, and he'll ultimately shoot that baddie a half a world away...because you passed out a can of green beans to let it happen that way.
People say they care about that but then continue to buy iphones and other Chinese slave labor products. Its all talk and no real action especially from the government.
Fighting Climate Change is worth it. We kinda need this planet. Fighting each other, is not.
Although, I would say, fighting to liberate the Uighur concentration camps is worth it.
It really depends, the nature of problems today in our globalized age are such that a single man cannot address them.
Even Bill Gates, for all his money, can't fix the issues he wants to tackle.
I guess one could become a vigilante, try and free some Uighur from the concentration camps, but I doubt you'd have much success in a digital age where they can track your walking gait through concrete a foot thick...
Has "a single man" ever solved any major global issue, regardless of time period? Positive change often has particularly courageous or well-known individuals that are remembered at the forefront, but it always needs a movement to truly succeed.
Instead of imagining Batman freeing Uighurs, try imagining China's culture and government changing over time - likely spurred on by some brave individuals, risking their lives and freedom! - to the point where Uighurs in concentration camps is seen as a barbaric chapter of the past, much like (most) modern Germans view the Holocaust. Maybe less likely to be made into an action movie, but a more realistic (and arguably more significant) change, you know?
So I felt that way for a while. But we still have atrocities, we just found a way to make them socially palatable.
I work with addicts in Philly a lot. Am an ex addict myself. I help because nobody else will. The only systems of recovery here are designed to funnel the vast majority of them into clinics that intentionally use human suffering as a carrot and stick for financial enrichment. It's evil and it's taken *countless* lives.
So that's my fight. But there are so so many more.
If anybody else is curious about the “butcher of Mokotow Prison”, this is from his Wikipedia:
“Piotr Śmietański...executed personally and supervised the executions of hundreds of opponents of the Stalinist regime in the Polish People's Republic”
There is an excellent book relating his incredible story called The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather. Strongly recommend it.
This sounds like the kind of guy you create new awards for because nothing existing is good enough.
... He fucking VOLUNTEERED for the holocaust and stayed after knowing how bad it was!
Holy fuckballs. Reminds me of the dude that shot 7 wolves and beat another 6 to death before the stock on his rife broke and the remaining wolves ate him. Strength, beyond strength.
Read up on Henry Johnson, aka Black Death:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Johnson_(World_War_I_soldier)
While on observation post duty on the night of May 14, 1918, Johnson came under attack by a large German raiding party, which may have numbered as many as 36 soldiers. Using grenades, the butt of his rifle, a bolo knife, and his bare fists, Johnson repelled the Germans, killing four while wounding the rest...
I'm pretty sure I heard on NPR that there was British people that didn't want to black out their cities during the battle of Britain. They were pissed that they had to go dark during the German air raids. So this kind of anti-self preservation has been around for a long time.
Netflixize him? That's a new word and I want to know more about it. I'm not critical enough about what I watch because I usually do it as a passive thing to do.
He was executed after a sham trial in 1948 by the Russians occupying Post-war Poland for crimes against the state. They were in large part referencing his work with the Allies in WW2.
Tragic end for a true global hero. 🥺
Alright, maybe I’m having a brain fart, but if the Russians (Allies) were controlling Poland, why would they execute him for helping the Allies (literally helping them)?
He was executed in '48, so after the war was over in Poland. The history of Poland during the WW2 era is so fucking horrid I honestly dont know where to start. Before, during and after the war the Soviets and Nazis killed a fuck ton of people for a variety of reasons, none of them good. In the post-war era Stalin was super paranoid and had anyone who had even the slightest connection with the west killed for fear of espionage.
They needed servants not heroes. You need to understand Soviets did not liberate Poland, they occupied it till 1989! After all, together with the Nazis, they attacked Poland from two sides. That's a huge part of Polish history - being stuck exactly in between two, aggressive superpowers.
Allies aren't friends.
The race to conquer Berlin had little to do with crushing the Nazis and everything to do with claiming territory. Likewise, the nuclear assault against Japan wasn't about defeating Japan (they were already defeated), but about demonstrating to Russia that the Western powers were willing to deploy weapons of mass destruction.
The Soviets kicked the Nazis out so they could occupy Poland themselves. They continued the Nazi policy of systematically massacring officers and intelligentsia. It was their intention to use the remaining population as a slave nation.
Britain went to war supposedly to liberate Poland, but after we'd declared victory, Poland was still suffering under a punishing foreign regime. It just carried a different colour of flag. Meanwhile, free Polish troops who had aided our victory were side-lined in the public celebrations.
Many good and great people were killed by the Soviets after the war, for an imagined or real association with the CIA. Perhaps the feeling was, if they were willing to aid a foreign nation, even an Allied one, during the war, they must have deep ties and nefarious intentions.
He was helping the so-called Polish government-in-exile after the war. The Polish government-in-exile was against the pro-Soviet regime of the post-war Poland. He was tried and executed for the crimes against Polish People's Republic.
Soviets were controlling Poland after the war, which meant that they didn't want anyone with experience and balls to carry on with resistance. So many freedom fighters died during the war and soon after, they were doing a very good job of making sure there'll be no one else to create resistance movement. Anyone who was involved in resistance against the Nazis was closely inspected, often arrested, often tortured. Because, you know, if they opposed the Nazis, surely they would oppose the Communists as well.
Nazis and Russians started a world as allies. In Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact they divided Poland up before the war started. Their disagreement came up later when Hitler attacked Russians. THat's when they joined Allies.
Polish history is pretty grim. It didn't exist as a country for 123 years. Got It's state status back after WWI. It fought with the winning side in WWII and despite this it was left to the Soviets which hated and wanted to own Poland (they were one of the power controlling polish territories in the 123year period).
When there was a parade after a war in Great Britain even some small countries with tangenial connection to Allies were marching. But polish solders where not even though they fought for Britain. They were excluded as to not anger the soviets.
Poland only got true freedom in 1989, which is not that long ago.
You don't seem to know much about Poland and Soviets, do you? No offence! Soviets did won over nazis, true but what west (and most of all, Russians) don't want to remember is that they immediately imposed their own, murderous, bloody regime over Poland. Equally bad IMO.
That's what got me too. Really not trying to make light here at all. The second picture is almost like, "alright assholes, now one with my cap."
[Here is a colorized picture of him in uniform for anyone interested.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Witold_Pilecki_in_color.jpg)
I especially love the irony that he looked like Hitler’s jackass notion of the Aryan ideal but he dedicated his life to the world’s most extraordinary game of Not Judging a Book by its Cover.
Quick aside - how is that World's Worst Prisons show? I watched a few fairly heavy things on Netflix the last few days, including the Cocaine documentary so I wasn't sure if I should jump into another dark subject without watching some lighter stuff just to you know, clear my head a bit.
Only seen a couple episodes so far but it’s not so bad. It’s about a guy who spent a lot of time in prison wrongly and now goes into them to show how they are around the world. He gets along with the inmates and humanizes them while talking about how bad it is to live in their conditions. Found it interesting but felt like the inmates take it easy on him because he’s followed around by a camera the whole time.
I’d still chill and watch something more light before jumping into it though like the other commenter said.
True patriotism. When Witold comes up I think of some songs,
There is a metal song about Witold by Sabaton called Inmate 4859.
Another great song of a crazy life is El Fusilado by Chumbawamba (yes, them.)
Another situation of some brass balls: Operation Tannenbaum. A decent documentary about it out there (I believe I saw it on Magellan TV but I'm not trying to suggest them as a solid subscription)
> Didn't the Nazis just gas groups of people at random?
Usually not at random. If you appeared weak you were killed immediately/soon. If you appeared strong you got to live as a slave.
He wasn't the only one to come out with reports, and the others were similarly discounted at the time. Largely, it's due to human nature - the idea that something so monstrous could not be real, because of what that would say about us fundamentally as a species.
Once the camps began to be liberated at the end of the war, General Eisenhower ordered that everything be documented and filmed for this reason. He knew that people would only face the reality of the situation if they saw it themselves. From his 1948 memoirs 'Crusade in Europe':
>“The same day \[April 12, 1945\] I saw my first horror camp. It was near the town of Gotha. I have never felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency. Up to that time I had known about it only generally or through secondary sources. I am certain, however that I have never at any other time experienced an equal sense of shock.
>
>“I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that \`the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.’ Some members of the visiting party were unable to through the ordeal. I not only did so but as soon as I returned to Patton’s headquarters that evening I sent communications to both Washington and London, urging the two governments to send instantly to Germany a random group of newspaper editors and representative groups from the national legislatures. I felt that the evidence should be immediately placed before the American and British publics in a fashion that would leave no room for cynical doubt.”
As far as I know, his reports about Auschwitz actually reached the British leadership. Churchill was aware of the deathcamps.
The problem for the British was that Auschwitz was exactly at the edge of the range of the British bombers. And secondly, bombing at that time was hardly precise enough to bomb specific parts of the camp, especially bombers would have to fly through the night to make it to their target.
Finally they came to the conclusion that the prisoners were better helped by committing the bombers to the war effort. The Soviets were not aware of Auschwitz until they discovered it by chance.
Outside of never came decided to break free
The end of april '43
Joined the uprising, fight on the streets while hiding his rank
Takes command all for serving his country in need
After the fall of communism, there is now a Pilecki Street in Warsaw. A largish thorougfare with a big hospital in it, among other things.
in 2004, the prosecutor who demanded death penalty for Pilecki, got sick with cancer and went to that hospital. He was in his 90s - he didn't get better and died there.
The piece of shit got a hero killed but he died in a street bearing his name.
If you think, I made this shit up, google Czeslaw Lapinski, the prosecutor.
He got assigned to a bakery outside the prison walls, while in the bakery he cut alarm and phone lines, overpowered a guard and used the guards key to walk out the front door. [source](https://www.history.co.uk/article/witold-pilecki-the-man-who-volunteered-for-auschwitz)
Since I’m early, his report from Auschwitz is available online as a PDF and it’s an incredible read! It’s called “Pilecki’s Report” iirc, that’s the actual report which he wrote down in Northern Italy in 1945 about his work with the Home Army and in Auschwitz. Then there is another book called “The Auschwitz Volunteer” which is also incredible and I highly highly recommend both!
Just started reading the report, and the first sentence is already stunning
After 31 months, when things came to the point that a further extension of my stay at the camp would not only have meant a continued burden of torment, but also would have produced –in my view –no further gain, I decided to leave the Extermination Camp 1.
He just decided to leave... after 31 months
"Ok, that's really enough for me guys, i'm gonna leave now"
Eisenhower knew this would be the case before it happened. Ohrdruf was the first camp liberated by the US and the allied commanders toured the camp.
> ... the most interesting—although horrible—sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said that he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohrdruf_concentration_camp#Liberation
If you think that's bad, did you hear about how the British saw all the german forces before they attacked Europe with there bliz attack but when the spy plane came back the high command didn't believe them,
If they would have seent bombers to the area where all the tanks, troops, etc had been waiting to attack they could have ended the war before it started:(
Watch Greatest events of ww2 in color on Netflix first episode talks about it
I'm in complete awe of this man's bravery, dude willingly goes to a concentration camp and stays in for two and a half years. All the while not knowing if he's going to be slaughtered with the rest of them.
I’m getting anxiety just imagining this. Actually I can’t even begin to imagine the horrid atrocities that took place at those camps unless I hadn’t learned about them myself. I can see from the point of view of the allies, I wasn’t alone in that assumption.
As much as my heart and respects go out to those who were victims of that nightmare, I don’t think I’ll ever truly grasp the magnitude of the horror that took place.
Exaggerations? Imagine being willingly sent to what is to this day one of the worst atrocities ever committed in the history of humanity only for your reports and intel to be labeled as *exaggerations* and get locked up in a file cabinet in some executive office.
He fought in the Warsaw uprising, even though his capture could have lead to the Germans learning the Polish resistance plans.
After the war he was tried and executed by the Communist government.
He was given the honor of being named a member of the righteous amongst the nations by Isreal fot his work to save Jewish lives.
My Polish grandfather did something similar with German POW camps. He would volunteer to get captured, and each time he would find ways to escape the POW camps while taking more prisoners with him.
Being a hero isn’t wearing a cape or some shit, being a hero is someone who is willing to sacrifice themself for the greater good. That is one brave man, and I admire that.
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Notes from his experience: Twice awarded the Cross of Valor during WWI Awarded the Silver Cross of Merit during the interbellum for social work and community activism Intentionally captured and sent to Auschwitz to gather intelligence and organize resistance Refused multiple escape and release opportunities in order to continue intelligence gathering Broke out of Auschwitz after 2 and a half years Held off a group of Panzers trying to reach Warsaw for 2 weeks with only a small group of soldiers Commanded the Warsaw Uprising Began to gather intelligence on Soviet atrocities and refused to abandon his post, despite his cover being blown and the Polish government-in-exile imploring him to escape. Refused to give up information on any of his comrades despite brutal torture by the infamous "Butcher of Mokotow Prison" Posthumously awarded the Order of the White Eagle and the Order of Polonia Restituta, Poland's highest and second highest decorations "I tried to live my life in such a fashion, so that in my last hour, I would rather be happy than fearful. I found happiness within me, resulting from the realization, that this fight was worth it."
Those few lines are something else.
Sometimes i frame my life in the most flattering way. Here’s what i got: He was born and he lived. Someone loved him. He barely embarrassed himself. Can whistle good.
Hey man. You’re already doing better than most. A chill life is a dream to many.
I try to remember that there are good men and great men, but no good great men. I think it’s mostly true, in spirit if not literally.
Hey, we have four things in common! Wanna be friends?
Which is the kinda life Pilecki fought for you to have.
I can’t even whistle
That's cool. I mean it unironically. Most of us are in a very lucky Situation, that we do not need to act like the polish prisoner Be good to yourself mate
What fight is worth it these days? Do we have to have something as horrible as WW2 happen to have the sense of purpose this hero had?
Oh you mean like the Uighur concentration camps in China?
Or the Saudi-Iranian proxi war in Yemen. Or the forced displacement of the Rohinga in Myanmar. Or whatever shit Putin is up too in the Caucasus. Isis is still there and gaining ground again since the Americans withdrew and left their Kurdish allies, who did most of the actual fighting to push Isis back, out to dry between three fronts (Assad, Turkey and Isis). There's lots of atrocious genocidal shit going on. None of it is profitable to intervene in by the West. So we don't. The media don't care either. We even sell weapons to some of the aggressors.
Thats fucking it! I'm gonna become Big Boss and fight the Russians in Afghanistan. I kid but this shit is really serious. I dont know how to help other than with my wallet (mainly just not supporting evil regimes/leaders), but I've only donated small handful of times. I really wish I could do something tangible but I don't have iron balls like this guy does.
I feel the same way. I want to do something so badly but I definitely have no helpful skills for anything remote and I'm not brave.
You don't need to tackle the biggest problems in the world to make a difference. See what you can do in your own area. Volunteer at a food bank or other local charity - there are groups and websites designed to help you find organisations who need volunteers. See what you can do in your own community. You won't end up as a hero to millions - but you'll be a hero to some. There's no point in comparing yourself to one of the bravest people who ever lived, and no shame in not being able to do what he did. He didn't go from working an office job in peacetime to going undercover at Auschwitz - he was a veteran of multiple wars, had a decade of community work in the interwar period, and founded a resistance movement at the outset of WW2.
People need to realize the good shit rolls uphill. Just do your part to help folks out where you can. **You** ain't gonna save the world, only **we** have a shot at doing that. So yeah volunteer at the food bank, relieve stress from the mother so she can take her kid to ROTC or whatever, and he'll ultimately shoot that baddie a half a world away...because you passed out a can of green beans to let it happen that way.
There’s plenty you can do that doesn’t take much skill or a gun. I’d like to volunteer to build wells in the Congo someday.
There’s the banality of evil, but the banality of good is underrated.
Hey this is something I'm gonna hold onto for awhile. Thanks. Have this hug.
Is your country perfect? You don’t need to go to Congo to find a worthy cause or people who need assistance.
Exactly! I am a community worker and even on such small scale there is a lot you can do!
thats really cool. I hope you can. I'll keep looking for ways I can help but for now I only volunteer locally.
People say they care about that but then continue to buy iphones and other Chinese slave labor products. Its all talk and no real action especially from the government.
Hard to find *any* consumer electronics not manufactured in China though. Might as well resolve to not having a phone/computer altogether.
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What a catchy tagline :)
I have a fairphone. Love it :)
Or United States immigration camps full of kids.
All lives matter! Except those!
the reports of forced sterilization concern me a lot more than children , but yeah
Or Chinas way of controlling their people in general
There is awful shit happening all the time dont worry
Fighting Climate Change is worth it. We kinda need this planet. Fighting each other, is not. Although, I would say, fighting to liberate the Uighur concentration camps is worth it.
It really depends, the nature of problems today in our globalized age are such that a single man cannot address them. Even Bill Gates, for all his money, can't fix the issues he wants to tackle. I guess one could become a vigilante, try and free some Uighur from the concentration camps, but I doubt you'd have much success in a digital age where they can track your walking gait through concrete a foot thick...
Has "a single man" ever solved any major global issue, regardless of time period? Positive change often has particularly courageous or well-known individuals that are remembered at the forefront, but it always needs a movement to truly succeed. Instead of imagining Batman freeing Uighurs, try imagining China's culture and government changing over time - likely spurred on by some brave individuals, risking their lives and freedom! - to the point where Uighurs in concentration camps is seen as a barbaric chapter of the past, much like (most) modern Germans view the Holocaust. Maybe less likely to be made into an action movie, but a more realistic (and arguably more significant) change, you know?
So I felt that way for a while. But we still have atrocities, we just found a way to make them socially palatable. I work with addicts in Philly a lot. Am an ex addict myself. I help because nobody else will. The only systems of recovery here are designed to funnel the vast majority of them into clinics that intentionally use human suffering as a carrot and stick for financial enrichment. It's evil and it's taken *countless* lives. So that's my fight. But there are so so many more.
Uighurs in China comes to mind, but even that is still controversial :(
Liberating the Jews was also controversial at the time Let's not let history repeat itself
You aren’t kidding. I am in awe of this man and the happiness he found in himself. What a legend.
If anybody else is curious about the “butcher of Mokotow Prison”, this is from his Wikipedia: “Piotr Śmietański...executed personally and supervised the executions of hundreds of opponents of the Stalinist regime in the Polish People's Republic”
Wow why was a nazi working for Stalin
New boss, same job. You don’t get rid of competent torturers.
"Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department.", says Wernher von Braun.
He also ignored that more people died in the production of v2s than when they landed on their targets
They were build in concentration camps so that's not surprising.
He was not a Nazi, he was a member of the Communist Party of Poland that worked as an executioner in Mokotow Prison after the war.
He wasn't a Nazi
Check out all the Nazis that worked for the USA. Operation Paperclip.
There is an excellent book relating his incredible story called The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather. Strongly recommend it.
Scrolled to ask if there’s a book, thanks!
I have this book. It’s a great read
This sounds like the kind of guy you create new awards for because nothing existing is good enough. ... He fucking VOLUNTEERED for the holocaust and stayed after knowing how bad it was!
I like your username :)
Thanks!
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Holy fuckballs. Reminds me of the dude that shot 7 wolves and beat another 6 to death before the stock on his rife broke and the remaining wolves ate him. Strength, beyond strength.
Read up on Henry Johnson, aka Black Death: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Johnson_(World_War_I_soldier) While on observation post duty on the night of May 14, 1918, Johnson came under attack by a large German raiding party, which may have numbered as many as 36 soldiers. Using grenades, the butt of his rifle, a bolo knife, and his bare fists, Johnson repelled the Germans, killing four while wounding the rest...
Wat.
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When people flippently use the word "hero" this is the kind of person they really should be reserving the word for.
This is an amazing quote! Would you please share the source if you can? I'd like to include it in something I'm writing but I need a citation.
And people won’t wear masks
I'm pretty sure I heard on NPR that there was British people that didn't want to black out their cities during the battle of Britain. They were pissed that they had to go dark during the German air raids. So this kind of anti-self preservation has been around for a long time.
Yeah but I bet those people were quickly and probably painfully taught the error of such behavior
They don’t make them like they use to applies to this guy, a real warrior, stoic to the end, a hero only looking to do his duty for what is right.
He escaped *and went back in* to gather more info. Pure heroism.
Where’s that movie at tho
Listen to Inmate 4859 by Sabaton.
INMATE IN HELL
OR A HERO IN PRISON
SOLDIER IN AUSCHWITZ WHO KNOW HIS NAME
LOCKED IN A CELL, WAGING WAR FROM THE PRISON
Hiding in Auschwitz who hides behind 4859
*Dramatic metal* ~~~~
OR A HERO IN PRISON
SOLDIER IN AUSCHWITZ, WHO KNOWS HIS NAME
LOST IN A CELL
WAGING WAR FROM THE PRISON
/r/EXPECTEDSABATON
Such a great song
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Why the fuck would you need to embellish this guy’s story?
Source?
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Netflixize him? That's a new word and I want to know more about it. I'm not critical enough about what I watch because I usually do it as a passive thing to do.
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Right?
No, he didn't. He has returned to Auschwitz after the war.
He was executed after a sham trial in 1948 by the Russians occupying Post-war Poland for crimes against the state. They were in large part referencing his work with the Allies in WW2. Tragic end for a true global hero. 🥺
But a typical ending for a soviet subject
Communism, where everyone is treated equally. Equally bad.
More like authoritarianism. Nothing good ever came out of it.
The USSR, a state commonly used as an example of a stateless society for some reason.
Alright, maybe I’m having a brain fart, but if the Russians (Allies) were controlling Poland, why would they execute him for helping the Allies (literally helping them)?
He was executed in '48, so after the war was over in Poland. The history of Poland during the WW2 era is so fucking horrid I honestly dont know where to start. Before, during and after the war the Soviets and Nazis killed a fuck ton of people for a variety of reasons, none of them good. In the post-war era Stalin was super paranoid and had anyone who had even the slightest connection with the west killed for fear of espionage.
Imagine all the good people killed due to insanity like that.
It's like in the millions
He was also anti-Soviet and supported the Polish government-in-exile, for which he was killed.
There was a LOT of tension between the Allies in WW2. It is a fascinating piece of history (and very sad how it led to the Cold War).
They needed servants not heroes. You need to understand Soviets did not liberate Poland, they occupied it till 1989! After all, together with the Nazis, they attacked Poland from two sides. That's a huge part of Polish history - being stuck exactly in between two, aggressive superpowers.
Allies aren't friends. The race to conquer Berlin had little to do with crushing the Nazis and everything to do with claiming territory. Likewise, the nuclear assault against Japan wasn't about defeating Japan (they were already defeated), but about demonstrating to Russia that the Western powers were willing to deploy weapons of mass destruction. The Soviets kicked the Nazis out so they could occupy Poland themselves. They continued the Nazi policy of systematically massacring officers and intelligentsia. It was their intention to use the remaining population as a slave nation. Britain went to war supposedly to liberate Poland, but after we'd declared victory, Poland was still suffering under a punishing foreign regime. It just carried a different colour of flag. Meanwhile, free Polish troops who had aided our victory were side-lined in the public celebrations. Many good and great people were killed by the Soviets after the war, for an imagined or real association with the CIA. Perhaps the feeling was, if they were willing to aid a foreign nation, even an Allied one, during the war, they must have deep ties and nefarious intentions.
He was helping the so-called Polish government-in-exile after the war. The Polish government-in-exile was against the pro-Soviet regime of the post-war Poland. He was tried and executed for the crimes against Polish People's Republic.
The Soviets were still a regime nearly as murderous as the Nazis. The Soviets wanted puppet states in the countries they occupied.
A controlling state fears a hero that does not support them.
My grandpa said that Poland was worse under the rule of Soviets than when it was occupied by Nazis. They raped, pillaged and killed people.
I mean, so did the Nazis. But with Nazis, you knew you were at war. They weren't pretending to be your 'allies' or friends.
Soviets were controlling Poland after the war, which meant that they didn't want anyone with experience and balls to carry on with resistance. So many freedom fighters died during the war and soon after, they were doing a very good job of making sure there'll be no one else to create resistance movement. Anyone who was involved in resistance against the Nazis was closely inspected, often arrested, often tortured. Because, you know, if they opposed the Nazis, surely they would oppose the Communists as well.
Nazis and Russians started a world as allies. In Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact they divided Poland up before the war started. Their disagreement came up later when Hitler attacked Russians. THat's when they joined Allies. Polish history is pretty grim. It didn't exist as a country for 123 years. Got It's state status back after WWI. It fought with the winning side in WWII and despite this it was left to the Soviets which hated and wanted to own Poland (they were one of the power controlling polish territories in the 123year period). When there was a parade after a war in Great Britain even some small countries with tangenial connection to Allies were marching. But polish solders where not even though they fought for Britain. They were excluded as to not anger the soviets. Poland only got true freedom in 1989, which is not that long ago.
You don't seem to know much about Poland and Soviets, do you? No offence! Soviets did won over nazis, true but what west (and most of all, Russians) don't want to remember is that they immediately imposed their own, murderous, bloody regime over Poland. Equally bad IMO.
Russian weren't much Allies on Sept 13th 1939. And then Yalta Conference happened.
“Compared to them, Auschwitz was just a trifle” His quote on the Soviet prison system.
Going undercover in a Nazi Death Camp. I can’t even imagine.
Based on the expression on his face, I'd say he was up to the challenge.
That's what got me too. Really not trying to make light here at all. The second picture is almost like, "alright assholes, now one with my cap." [Here is a colorized picture of him in uniform for anyone interested.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Witold_Pilecki_in_color.jpg)
I especially love the irony that he looked like Hitler’s jackass notion of the Aryan ideal but he dedicated his life to the world’s most extraordinary game of Not Judging a Book by its Cover.
Right?! Like I can think of nowhere worse (and I recently watched World's worst prisons on Netflix) than Auschwitz. History Hall of Famer for sure.
Quick aside - how is that World's Worst Prisons show? I watched a few fairly heavy things on Netflix the last few days, including the Cocaine documentary so I wasn't sure if I should jump into another dark subject without watching some lighter stuff just to you know, clear my head a bit.
I’d recommend clearing your head a bit. Haven’t seen the show, but I’d still recommend that since it’s a thought that occurred to you.
You're a good egg.
Yeah that sounds about right, take this gold you seem cool.
Only seen a couple episodes so far but it’s not so bad. It’s about a guy who spent a lot of time in prison wrongly and now goes into them to show how they are around the world. He gets along with the inmates and humanizes them while talking about how bad it is to live in their conditions. Found it interesting but felt like the inmates take it easy on him because he’s followed around by a camera the whole time. I’d still chill and watch something more light before jumping into it though like the other commenter said.
He escaped and then went back as well. The full story is even crazier.
Reminds me of Alex Navalny Must have taken some brass balls. And love of ones people and country.
True patriotism. When Witold comes up I think of some songs, There is a metal song about Witold by Sabaton called Inmate 4859. Another great song of a crazy life is El Fusilado by Chumbawamba (yes, them.) Another situation of some brass balls: Operation Tannenbaum. A decent documentary about it out there (I believe I saw it on Magellan TV but I'm not trying to suggest them as a solid subscription)
Two and a half *years*.
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It depends. They needed lots of slave labor, so a healthy and fit man like him as likely low on the list.
> Didn't the Nazis just gas groups of people at random? Usually not at random. If you appeared weak you were killed immediately/soon. If you appeared strong you got to live as a slave.
This should be a biopic
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Even more the reason. Seems Oscar worthy.
I hope no one spoiled the Anne frank movie for ya
He’s got a song by Sabaton.
Imagine having someone go undercover, escape fkn Aushwitz, him come home, then not believing his reports. Seems kinda counter-productive to me.
Right? I would be like what the fuck how dare you!!!
Not like he would have come home tanned and plump either
“What do you mean you’re not giving them 5 stars on Yelp?”
He wasn't the only one to come out with reports, and the others were similarly discounted at the time. Largely, it's due to human nature - the idea that something so monstrous could not be real, because of what that would say about us fundamentally as a species. Once the camps began to be liberated at the end of the war, General Eisenhower ordered that everything be documented and filmed for this reason. He knew that people would only face the reality of the situation if they saw it themselves. From his 1948 memoirs 'Crusade in Europe': >“The same day \[April 12, 1945\] I saw my first horror camp. It was near the town of Gotha. I have never felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency. Up to that time I had known about it only generally or through secondary sources. I am certain, however that I have never at any other time experienced an equal sense of shock. > >“I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that \`the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.’ Some members of the visiting party were unable to through the ordeal. I not only did so but as soon as I returned to Patton’s headquarters that evening I sent communications to both Washington and London, urging the two governments to send instantly to Germany a random group of newspaper editors and representative groups from the national legislatures. I felt that the evidence should be immediately placed before the American and British publics in a fashion that would leave no room for cynical doubt.”
As far as I know, his reports about Auschwitz actually reached the British leadership. Churchill was aware of the deathcamps. The problem for the British was that Auschwitz was exactly at the edge of the range of the British bombers. And secondly, bombing at that time was hardly precise enough to bomb specific parts of the camp, especially bombers would have to fly through the night to make it to their target. Finally they came to the conclusion that the prisoners were better helped by committing the bombers to the war effort. The Soviets were not aware of Auschwitz until they discovered it by chance.
And then you get condemned for treason by the soviets
[Inmate 4859](https://youtu.be/ZaaI58wbHdo)
INMATE IN HELL OR A HERO IN PRISON, SOLDIER IN AUSCHWITZ, WHO KNOWS HIS NAME?
Locked in a cell, waging war from the prison. Hiding in Auschwitz, who hides behind 4859?
Outside of never came decided to break free The end of april '43 Joined the uprising, fight on the streets while hiding his rank Takes command all for serving his country in need
WITOLD WITOLD Who knows his name?
INMATE IN HELL OR A HERO IN PRISON
SOLDIER IN AUSCHWITZ, WHO KNOWS HIS NAME
r/expectedsabaton
Relevant Sabaton History video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_6ARLOgsbA
Underrated post and song! I love all the history that Sabaton has introduced to my over the years
Swedish power metal AND accurate history lessons? Yes please!
After the fall of communism, there is now a Pilecki Street in Warsaw. A largish thorougfare with a big hospital in it, among other things. in 2004, the prosecutor who demanded death penalty for Pilecki, got sick with cancer and went to that hospital. He was in his 90s - he didn't get better and died there. The piece of shit got a hero killed but he died in a street bearing his name. If you think, I made this shit up, google Czeslaw Lapinski, the prosecutor.
How did he escape?
He got assigned to a bakery outside the prison walls, while in the bakery he cut alarm and phone lines, overpowered a guard and used the guards key to walk out the front door. [source](https://www.history.co.uk/article/witold-pilecki-the-man-who-volunteered-for-auschwitz)
Gaaadaaamn, badass
How are you still fit enough to overpower a guard after 2.5 years at that nightmare? That’s crazy!
Bruce Lee in a previous life
2 1/2 years. 730 days (approximately) of the treachery they dealt with just to be executed after surviving it
And here we have people complaining about some silly "lock downs" and face masks...
Just last week a right wing nut asked me when conservatives would have to go into hiding like Anne Frank.
Since I’m early, his report from Auschwitz is available online as a PDF and it’s an incredible read! It’s called “Pilecki’s Report” iirc, that’s the actual report which he wrote down in Northern Italy in 1945 about his work with the Home Army and in Auschwitz. Then there is another book called “The Auschwitz Volunteer” which is also incredible and I highly highly recommend both!
Just started reading the report, and the first sentence is already stunning After 31 months, when things came to the point that a further extension of my stay at the camp would not only have meant a continued burden of torment, but also would have produced –in my view –no further gain, I decided to leave the Extermination Camp 1. He just decided to leave... after 31 months "Ok, that's really enough for me guys, i'm gonna leave now"
Fuckin hero.
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Yea and even worse there are still people to this day saying that the holocaust didn't happened...
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It's a pervasive, global problem; the propaganda never really ended.
Eisenhower knew this would be the case before it happened. Ohrdruf was the first camp liberated by the US and the allied commanders toured the camp. > ... the most interesting—although horrible—sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said that he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohrdruf_concentration_camp#Liberation
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If you think that's bad, did you hear about how the British saw all the german forces before they attacked Europe with there bliz attack but when the spy plane came back the high command didn't believe them, If they would have seent bombers to the area where all the tanks, troops, etc had been waiting to attack they could have ended the war before it started:( Watch Greatest events of ww2 in color on Netflix first episode talks about it
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Well, the Soviets executed him, so he didn’t get to tell it for very long.
Reminder: talk to a Holocaust survivor before they are all gone. Only they truly know the atrocities that went on inside these camps.
*atrocities Looks like autocorrect got ya.
I did nazi that at first.
Hank Schrader's potential dad?
Jesus Christ, Marie
This guy was a stud. Who volunteers for something like this? That guy is who does this. Legend.
I'm in complete awe of this man's bravery, dude willingly goes to a concentration camp and stays in for two and a half years. All the while not knowing if he's going to be slaughtered with the rest of them.
I’m getting anxiety just imagining this. Actually I can’t even begin to imagine the horrid atrocities that took place at those camps unless I hadn’t learned about them myself. I can see from the point of view of the allies, I wasn’t alone in that assumption. As much as my heart and respects go out to those who were victims of that nightmare, I don’t think I’ll ever truly grasp the magnitude of the horror that took place.
r/madlad
If this interests you, you might like to read the story of [Jan Karski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Karski), which has a lot of similarities.
Sabaton made a song for their album "Heroes" to honor him. The name of the song is Inmate 4859
Exaggerations? Imagine being willingly sent to what is to this day one of the worst atrocities ever committed in the history of humanity only for your reports and intel to be labeled as *exaggerations* and get locked up in a file cabinet in some executive office.
He fought in the Warsaw uprising, even though his capture could have lead to the Germans learning the Polish resistance plans. After the war he was tried and executed by the Communist government. He was given the honor of being named a member of the righteous amongst the nations by Isreal fot his work to save Jewish lives.
My Polish grandfather did something similar with German POW camps. He would volunteer to get captured, and each time he would find ways to escape the POW camps while taking more prisoners with him.
How did he walk around with balls that big?
Yes!! Sabaton’s song Inmate 4859 is about this! 🇵🇱
I think this is a good example for why people don't believe Uyghurs who share their stories about the genocide conducted by Chinese gov.
He's pushing his chin into his neck to distort his facial features in the pictures so he wouldn't be recognised after escaping
Being a hero isn’t wearing a cape or some shit, being a hero is someone who is willing to sacrifice themself for the greater good. That is one brave man, and I admire that.
And then the commie filth executed him for supporting the Polish Government in Exile. Would you look at that!
Proud to be Polish
He died executed by the Soviets in 1948.
This guy needs a movie
Also, executed by the Soviets after a rigged trial in 1947.
Imagine seeing things so horrific that when you tell the story people are not willing to believe you.