Witold Pilecki had no chance. He was actually convicted at the time of his arrest. Only a precise performance was left to play. The last act of drama occurred in a Mokotów prison in Warsaw, where the executioner put a weapon to his occipital and then pulled the trigger.
Witold Pilecki, Maria Szelągowska on the bench of the defendants, March 1948.
On May 25, 1948, after the targets of the Mokotów prison, the news spread – the execution of Pilecki will take place in the evening, then in the rank of a rot master. Fr Jan Stępień, a erstwhile National Army chaplain who served a 15-year conviction for his service in the conspiracy, later recalled: “We waited in suspense for this moment. erstwhile I heard a whisper: “They are coming,” I approached a window with 2 fellow prisoners who knew Witold Pilecki. I won't forget this view. 2 convicts were led. Pilecki first appeared. He had his mouth tied with a white band. He was led by 2 guards. He barely touched the ground. And I don't know if he was conscious at the time. He seemed completely fainted... And then the volley.”
Wiesław Wysocki, the biography of Pilecki, is doubtful about this salva. The word adds to the stress that undoubtedly accompanied the witness. The sound that reached his ears may besides have been echoed. due to the fact that the executions in Mokotów were done differently. According to the russian model, the executioner abruptly came from behind, put a weapon to his occipital and pulled the trigger. Very often, St. Sgt. Piotr Sztański. And that's his name on the prison protocol for the execution of the sentence. In addition to him, Pilecki's last moments were watched by 3 soldiers – the prosecutor, the prison warden and chaplain. There was no compact firing squad. Sztański himself, according to documents, received a 1000 zloty bonus for the performance of the task.
Volunteer from Auschwitz
In postwar reality, the communicative of the celebrated AK officer had no chance to end differently. Pilecki's conviction actually fell erstwhile he was arrested. The only thing left to play was the performance. Italian historian Marco Patricelli notes: “The process was to be of a “educational” character [...] was to adopt the manipulated public opinion that the external reaction forces wanted to overthrow the young, enthusiastic People's Poland [...]. It was besides intended to justify further bolting against anti-communism as works no longer class enemies, but enemies of the Polish nation in general, which must be eradicated." And nothing could change here the merit of the defendant's war.
Pilecki fought in the 1939 defensive war, and respective weeks after his surrender he co-founded the Secret Polish Army, 1 of the first conspiratorial organizations in the occupied country. little than a year later, he was deliberately captured by Germans during a street catch to go to Auschwitz. He founded a conspiracy organization there to paper Nazi crimes. It was thanks to him that the planet learned about the Holocaust. After his escape from Oświęcim, Pilecki took part in the Warsaw Uprising, then went to a prisoner of war camp in Murnau, yet after his liberation he volunteered to a station in Italy 2nd Polish Corps. He shortly began a fresh chapter in the ministry. And this part of his activity of enthusiasm among the communists could definitely not have aroused.
Shortly after the war among the command 2 Corps The thought was to make an intelligence network in the Soviet-dependent Poland. It was to be based on the Akowski structures ‘NO’ organisations. The task was entrusted to Pilecki. In December 1945, he returned to Warsaw under the assumed name Roman Jezierski and threw himself into the work. He freshened up old conspiratorial contacts, made fresh ones, and began collecting highly valuable information. They afraid political life in the country, the structure of the safety apparatus, the army and supervised by the communist administration, adverse economical agreements which Poland concluded with the USSR. Reports via couriers traveled to the West. At the same time, in order not to arouse suspicion, Pilecki takes up regular work. "He runs a perfumed water mill and designs bottle labels; his artistic abilities are very valuable here. He besides works for a construction company," Patricelli explains. But the communist services are onto him.
"One of the possible ways to deconspirate Pilecki was by an accident of the courier “Lek”, reportedly a permanent resident in Berlin, who was arrested and later after being released under surveillance," Wiesław Wysocki believes. But there were at least a fewer akin clues to the safe house. In September 1946, agent Leszek Kuchciński is introduced to Pilecki's organization – during the war a TAP soldier. He was the author of the alleged "Brzeszczot" report, in which the words about the request to "eliminate the brains of MBP". The provocation was to become an excuse to arrest the group's leaders and at the same time a crowning argument in the trial against them.
In May 1947, the organization was yet broken up. 23 people were arrested. Among them was Pilecki himself.
“A pain on the body of the homeland”
Pilecki, then in the rank of a rot master, was briefly sent to the interior detention of MBP at the Basketball, and from there to the X pavilion prisons in Mokotówwhere he was subjected to a long and violent investigation. He took part in many hours of interrogations, was devoid of sleep, beaten with fists, with his ft from the chair, seated on an inverted stool, blackmailed by the possible of arresting his loved ones. During 1 visit to his wife, he said: “They finished me off here. Oświęcim was a play.
The trial against him began on March 3, 1948. Along with Pilecki, 7 of his closest associates sat on the bench. The jury was chaired by Colonel Jan Hryckowian. "Ironic is the fact that he was the captain of the AK and from the business the conflict Cross was built. However, it did not prevent him from participating in many akin political processes," Wiesław Wysocki notes. A akin way passed – Major Czesław Łapinski, who had fought in the September run just a fewer years earlier, and later as a associate of the ZWZ-AK in forest troops in Zamość.
Pilecki was accused of spying for abroad states, preparing assassinations on the most crucial figures of the communist safety apparatus, illegal possession of weapons and usage of false documents. The suspect filed further charges. He admitted to collecting information, but as he explained, he did so as a soldier on command and utilizing his superiors. So his action had nothing to do with the usage of alien powers. He besides powerfully denied planning to assassinate anyone. He owned a gun, but it came from a time of war and was not going to usage it.
Meanwhile, the process was marked from the beginning by carefully directed performance. “[...] I heard the first trial due to the fact that it was broadcast on the radio. Rats of the defendants, there were many propaganda terms: “spy”, “payable resident of Anders” ... [...] The press and the bark kept broadcasting. 1 specified street talker hung right next to our house" – recalled the boy of an officer, Andrzej Pilecki, who was a teenager during the trial. The audience was mostly a carefully selected audience, however, erstwhile evidence that could possibly harm the fresh power was begun, the court excluded the transparency of the hearing. It was said that Pilecki could inactive be saved by Józef Cyrankiewicz, then Prime Minister, and previously prisoner of Auschwitz. A group of omens wrote a letter raising Pilecki's merits. They hoped Cyrankiewicz would join this initiative. But that did not happen. Moreover, the Prime Minister reportedly wrote a letter to the court in which he stressed that Pilecki did not deserve any relief treatment. The scripture was allegedly read during the trial, as the cousin of the captain Eleanor Ostrowska was to hear. On the another hand, as Andrzej Pilecki emphasizes, there is no evidence of specified a letter.
After 12 days of trial, the wire was closed. shortly there were sentences. Pilecki was sentenced to the highest penalty. "The death conviction was a terrible shock to us. My parent was completely deluded that a man like him [...] could not conviction to death. Then she hoped to be pardoned. She wrote a request to Bierut. No luck. She tried to activate any people to ease her sentence. She got into Czesław Lapiński's D.A.'s office, but only heard from him: “Your husband is simply a pain in the body of his homeland”, the Colonel's boy recalled. He yet wrote to Bierut asking for mercy. In vain, too. Finally, on 1 of the May nights of 1948, the door to his cell opened, and moments later, the guards bound his hands and led him out into the corridor...
Pilecki's body rested in a nameless grave. The household was not informed about the burial site. The court did not rehabilitate an officer until 1990. 16 years later, he was honored posthumously with the Order of the White Eagle, and was promoted to Colonel in 2013.
