Witold Pilecki memorial plaque on the wall of Kościół św Stanisława Kostki (St Stanislaus Kostka Church) in Warsaw

At the time of the outbreak of World War 2 Witold Pilecki was an officer in the Polish army and he later became a prominent member of the Polish resistance during the German occupation of Poland.

In 1940, Pilecki volunteered to be deported to Auschwitz in order to gather intelligence about the camp from the inside and to organise inmate resistance. On 19th September 1940, he deliberately went out during a Warsaw street roundup ("łapanka") and was caught by the Germans. After two days of detention Pilecki was deported to Auschwitz, where he was given inmate number 4859. His intelligence reports about German atrocities in the camp began to reach the Polish government-in-exile in 1941.

He escaped from Auschwitz in 1943 and later took part in the Warsaw Uprising, after which he was interned as a POW by the Germans. Pilecki returned to Poland in 1945 where he continued to work for the London-based Polish government.

He was arrested by Poland's new communist authorities in May 1947 and was executed in 1948, following a show trial. Information about his exploits and fate was suppressed by the Polish communist regime and his body has never been found....