Witold Pilecki (Polish: [ˈvitɔlt piˈlɛt͡skʲi] ; 13 May 1901 – 25 May 1948), known by the codenames Roman Jezierski, Tomasz Serafiński, Druh and Witold, was a Polish World War II cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader.
As a youth, Pilecki joined Polish underground scouting; in the aftermath of World War I, he joined the Polish militia and, later, the Polish Army. He participated in the Polish–Soviet War, which ended in 1921. In 1939, he participated in the unsuccessful defence of Poland against the invasion by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union. Shortly afterward, he joined the Polish resistance, co-founding the Secret Polish Army resistance movement. In 1940, Pilecki let himself be captured by the occupying Germans in order to be voluntarily sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp and infiltrate it. At Auschwitz, he organized a resistance movement that eventually included hundreds of inmates, and he secretly drew up reports detailing German atrocities at the camp, which were smuggled out to Home Army headquarters and shared with the Western Allies.
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