Classes on Polish volunteer to Auschwitz Pilecki set off in Brussels
Lessons about volunteer to Auschwitz, "the bravest of the brave" rotamaster Witold Pilecki, were launched in Polish schools in Brussels on Saturday.
“Spreading knowledge about Poland’s commendable past is our mission”, the organizers explained.
The lessons are a joint initiative of the Polish schools in Brussels, the Polish embassy in Belgium, Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), and the Law and Justice MEP Tomasz Poreba.
“The role of science is not just to educate students at Polish universities, high schools and primary schools, but also to spread knowledge beyond our country’s borders”, professor Tadeusz Wolsza from IPN and the Polish Academy of Sciences explained.
The professor emphasized that the project was one of many initiatives that grew out of a research program, called "Pilecki, an invincible hero", dealing with the legacy of rotamaster Witold Pilecki (see: NOTE 1).
"The underlying aim of all those projects is to preserve the memory of our national heroes, and there is no question that rotamaster Pilecki was one", Tadeusz Wolsza stressed.
The professor said the children of the Polish diaspora had a sound command of Poland’s history, just as their Poland-based colleagues, but maybe knew a little less about the Underground resistance and the Enduring Soldiers (see: NOTE 3), of whom rotamaster Pilecki has been a prime example.
The first lesson was held in the Joachim Lelewel school, and the second one at the headquarters of the Polish Catholic mission.
"We want to inform, to talk about Polish history, Polish heroes, to tell young people (…) that Poland had many meritorious figures in the past, many patriots, many people, young people who did not yield, who fought to the last soldier sacrifcing their lives to protect our country", Tomasz Poreba said of the lessons.
The Law and Justice MEP stressed that Enduring Soldiers Day was now a national remembrance day, established by the late former President Lech Kaczynski.
The Brussels lessons about rotamaster Witold Pilecki are part of a broader initiative that will see IPN events also held in Vilnius, London and New York.
NOTE 1: Witold Pilecki was a Polish soldier and rotamaster in the pre-war Polish cavalry. In German-occupied Poland he founded the Secret Polish Army resistance group in November 1939, subsequently joining the 1942-formed underground Home Army (AK) (see: NOTE 2).
Called "the bravest of the brave" and considered one of the top five war heroes of all time, Pilecki compiled the so-called Witold's Report, the first comprehensive account of proceedings in the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Holocaust.
During World War Two Pilecki volunteered for a resistance operation to get imprisoned in the Auschwitz camp, where he planned to gather intelligence and escape. At Auschwitz Pilecki organized a resistance movement, smuggled food in, consoled co-prisoners and as early as 1941 started informing the Western Allies about Nazi atrocities in the camp.
In the night from April 26 to 27 1943, after 2,5 years of imprisonment, Pilecki and two companions made a daring escape from the Auschwitz camp, whereupon Pilecki got in touch with the Home Army in Krakow (south Poland) and presented a detailed report on horror of mass extermination taking place in Auschwitz. Unfortunately, his plan of freeing the Auschwitz prisoners was not accepted in face of German forces' dominating strength as well as passivity of the Allied side.
Soon Pilecki moved to Warsaw, subsequently serving briefly in a partisan unit in central-south Poland and again returning to Warsaw to work for the underground.
In 1944 Pilecki fought in the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans (see: NOTE 4).
He remained loyal to the London-based Polish exile government after the communist takeover of Poland, and on May 8, 1947 was arrested on charges of working for "foreign imperialism" and after a show trial sentenced to death.
He was executed by a gunshot to the back of the head on 25 May 1948 in the basement of infamous Warsaw Mokotow prison. His body was most probably dumped into a nameless grave and has yet to be found. Information about his activities and fate was suppressed by the Polish communist regime until 1989.
As Pilecki's burial site remains unknown, he is among the communist regime victims whose remains are currently sought in countrywide exhumations by Poland's National Remembrance Institute (IPN).
Witold's Report, considered the world's first comprehensive intelligence on the Holocaust, was presented at the last International Book Fair in London, promoting Poland's "bravest of the brave" among both compatriots (with the support of the Polish Institute and the Polish Social and Cultural Centre), as well as foreigners at the fair in Olympia.
Pilecki was posthumously awarded Poland's highest decoration the Order of the White Eagle by late President Lech Kaczynski, and later promoted to Colonel.
NOTE 2: The Home Army (AK) was the main resistance movement in Poland when it was occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II. It was formed from the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), which in turn evolved from a clandestine organisation called the Polish Victory Service (SZP).
The SZP was launched on the night of Sept. 26, 1939 by a group of senior officers led by Gen. Michal Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski, with the participation of Warsaw Mayor Stefan Starzynski. It became the nucleus of a nationwide resistance movement known as the Polish Underground State.
The Home Army, whose allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile, was one of the largest and best organised resistance movements in Europe, with the total number of fighters put at anywhere from 200,000 to 600,000.
In his book God's Playground. A History of Poland, prominent historian Norman Davies said that "the Home Army could fairly claim to be the largest of European resistance [organisations]".
The so-called Polish Underground State, which operated from 1939 to 1945 and by many was looked up to as a model of conspiracy administration, was subordinated to the Polish government-in-exile, which was first based in France and subsequently in Great Britain. In Poland the government-in-exile had an impressively developed administration with secret courts and prosecutors, underground schools and universities, as well as own publishing houses.
The Home Army was the armed wing of the Polish Underground State. Along with various combat activities, the AK was also widely involved in rescuing Jews, among others, by means of the famous 1942-founded Council to Aid Jews (Rada Pomocy Zydom) codenamed 'Zegota' - the only organisation in Europe and a unique one on a global scale established to defend and provide help to Jews in ghettos and elsewhere.
The successive commanders of the AK were generals Stefan Rowecki (until June 30, 1943) Tadeusz Komorowski (until Oct. 2, 1944) and Leopold Okulicki (until Jan. 19, 1945).
The culmination of the AK's armed struggle came with the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (see: NOTE 4). The AK's wartime losses totalled about 100,000 soldiers killed in fighting or murdered, and about 50,000 taken to the Soviet Union and imprisoned.
In early 1942, the Home Army had about 100,000 soldiers; by the summer of 1944 the number had risen to 380,000. These included 10,800 officers. Poland’s famous Silent Unseen elite special-operations paratroops were also part of the Home Army.
The Home Army's activities did not end with the end of WW II. After 1945 the AK's so-called Enduring Soldiers fought the Soviet regime.
Under communism AK soldiers were persecuted by Poland's authorities at the time, especially during the Stalinist period. Many of them were handed death penalties; others spent many years in prison. (PAP)
NOTE 3: After World War II many soldiers of the Polish anti-Nazi underground refused to lay down their arms and continued fighting against Poland's Soviet-imposed communist regime, winning the name "Enduring Soldiers". They are also sometimes called "Cursed Soldiers" for being treated as outlaws and forced into oblivion by the communist state. Jozef Franczak, known as the last Enduring Soldier, perished in an ambush as late as 1963.
However, on June 13, 2017, in the village Poplawy-Rogale in southeast Poland's Lublin province, the teams from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in the course of ongoing countrywide exhumations of communism victims unearthed remains believed to belong to Antoni Dolega, a member of the post-World War II anticommunist resistance said to have remained in hiding until his death in 1982.
In 2011 the Polish parliament established March 1 as Enduring Soldiers National Remembrance Day upon a motion by the late Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
NOTE 4: The Warsaw Uprising broke out on August 1, 1944 as the biggest resistance operation in Nazi-occupied Europe. Initially intended to last several days, it continued for over two months before being suppressed by the Germans. The uprising claimed the lives of 18,000 insurgents and around 200,000 civilians.
After the insurgents surrendered and the remaining 500,000 residents were expelled, the Germans methodically burned down and blew up Warsaw house by house. By January 1945, ap. 90 percent of the buildings and city infrastucture was destroyed. (PAP)
