Skip to main content

Poland hopes to identify remains of Auschwitz hero

This is wonderful news. Poland is putting the effort into finding her heroes.

It could hardly have been a riskier mission: infiltrate Auschwitz to chronicle Nazi atrocities. Witold Pilecki survived nearly three years as an inmate in the death camp, managing to smuggle out word of executions before making a daring escape. But the Polish resistance hero was crushed by the post-war Communist regime – tried on trumped-up charges and executed.

Six decades on, Poland hopes Pilecki's remains will be identified among the entangled skeletons and shattered skulls of resistance fighters being excavated from a mass grave on the edge of Warsaw's Powazki Military Cemetery. The exhumations are part of a movement in the resurgent, democratic nation to officially recognize its war-time heroes and 20th century tragedies.

I've written about Witold Pilecki before, back in 2009.

Poland hopes to identify remains of Auschwitz hero ~ Ynetnews