An Army of Normal Folks - Witold Pilecki: The Auschwitz Volunteer

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

For An Army of Normal Dead Folks, Larry Reed tells the story of the Polish hero who spied on the Nazis and the Soviets. And paid the ultimate price for it.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So he volunteered to get arrested by the Germans hoping that they wouldn't simply shoot him and that they might then send him to this place called Auschwitz so he could find out from the inside what was going on and hopefully smuggle out documents or somehow get the word out. He got his wish. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy.

I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur. And I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis. And that last part, I don't know, somehow won an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will just never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits, using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox,

but rather by an army of normal folks. Guys, that's us, you and me, deciding, hey, you know what? I can help. And that's exactly what Vitold Pilecki did, as you just heard. And there's a bunch more to his heroism, which you're about to hear from Real Heroes author Larry Reed, as we pay tribute to him as part of our special series, Drumroll, an army of normal dead folks. special series, Drumroll, and Army of Normal Dead Folks, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors.

Experiencing the news each day can feel like a journey. With Up First from NPR though, it doesn't have to be. Welcome to 15 easy minutes of breaking news, clarity on international and national affairs, and a casual tone that you can take in with breakfast. Begin your day informed, ready, and refreshed. Begin your day with Up First. Subscribe to Up First from NPR on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well the election is in the home stretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question.

This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Ested Herndon. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends, like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlamagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about?

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like writer and actor Dan Aykroyd. I love writing more than anything. You're left alone, you know, you do three hours in the morning, you write three hours in the afternoon, go pick up a kid from school, then write at night, and after nine hours you come out with seven pages, and then you're moving on. And actor and comedian Jack McBrayer. The most important aspect is the collaboration with people that I like, I trust, are talented. That has been the most amazing gift to me about this crazy business that we've chosen. Meeting these people who have such diverse talents and you're able to create something

together. the new season of Here's the Thing starting January 28th on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What if you ask two different people the same set of questions? Even if the questions are the same, our experiences can lead us to drastically different answers. I'm Minnie Driver, and I set out to explore this idea in my podcast, Minnie Questions. Over the years, we have had some incredible guests. People like Courtney Cox, star of the infinitely beloved sitcom Friends, EGOT winner Viola Davis, and former Prime Minister of the UK, Tony Blair.

And now, Minnie Questions is returning for another season. We've asked an entirely new set of guests our seven questions, including Jane Lynch, Delaney Rowe, and Cord Jefferson. Each episode is a new person's story with new lessons, new memories, and new connections to show us how we're both similar and unique.

Listen to mini questions on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Seven questions, limitless answers. Here's one that this guy may be the bravest human being I've ever heard of in my life anybody to purposely get himself captured to go into a concentration camp to be Brutally beaten just in order To let people know about what was really going on inside him. Yes now That's a guy and I don't want to mispronounce his name,

but I think it's Witold Pilecki. Pilecki. Pilecki. Witold Pilecki. OK. Bravery beyond measure. Wow. That's the truth.

Tell us about Mr. Pilecki. OK. I did not meet him. He was executed by the Soviet communists in 1948. but I did meet his son. His son and his daughter are still living well in their 90s today. Witold Poletski played an important role as a teenager when Poland reappeared on the map after a 123-year absence at the end of World War I. a 123-year absence at the end of World War I. Poland regained its independence with the end of that war, but immediately was invaded by Lenin and the Bolsheviks from the Soviet Union. Then Russia soon to become the Soviet Union, because they wanted to take Poland back. And Poletsky fought,

was decorated for bravery, and Poland succeeded in throwing back the Soviets under Lenin. And for the next 18 years, Poletski raises a family. Just a normal guy at that point. Normal guy, yeah. Highly regarded, he had been decorated, as I say, during the war, but he was just a normal guy. Yeah, highly decorated for his bravery in war, but that wasn't his life. His life was his wife, his kids.

That's right, and his small business. And he was also known as a philanthropist as his business grew. But then in 1939, Hitler invades Poland from the West, and by agreement with the Soviets, two weeks later, Stalin invades Poland from the West and by agreement with the Soviets, two weeks later, Stalin invades Polin from the East. I mean, you know, no… My goodness, if you're Polin. Oh my gosh.

Well, the Poles didn't roll over and play dead. They immediately formed powerful resistance movements. Poletski said goodbye to his family as he joined the Polish army again and fought against both the Soviets and the Nazis. Within a year, the Polish resistance became aware of a complex being built near Krakow in southern Poland, a huge sprawling complex that was at first a prison for Poles that the Nazis were creating. It was not yet the Jewish concentration camp we know today as Auschwitz. It would soon become that. But Pilecki was one of those who said, we need to get someone on the inside to find out what's

going on there and tell the world, find out what's happening to our comrades. So he volunteered to get arrested by the Germans, hoping that they wouldn't simply shoot him, and that they might then send him to this place called Auschwitz so he could find out from the inside what was going on and hopefully smuggle out documents or somehow get the word out. He got his wish. He was sentenced to...

This man had a wife and kids. Yeah, two kids. And we're not talking about a 22-year-old guy here. We're talking about this guy in his late 30s. Yeah, exactly. And he purposely gets captured so that he can be sent to Auschwitz so that he can document what was really going on. Another story another story similar to these other stories where people are just complacent. People don't really want to know what's going on. He's going to put it in their faces. Yeah. What an extraordinary man he was. And I echo what you said at the start of this bill, that he is, I think, the bravest person I've ever come to know of. I don't know of anybody

braver than Vito Poletsky. Well, while he was in Auschwitz, of course, he was subjected to inhumane treatment and disease and all the punishing consequences of being holed up in such a place. And yet… Lice, stomach issues. Besides the beating, the environment itself killed people. Oh yeah, absolutely. He saw it every day. But at the same time, he was looking for every opportunity to find people imprisoned as he was who could help him form some sort of internal resistance.

He built a group, gave it a name, and these were people, these were prisoners, who would help him smuggle out documents, stealing from the offices of the German High Command. They smuggled out documents. For about six months, they actually built from crude materials a radio transmitter. And from inside Auschwitz, they were broadcasting a message. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, for six months. They actually were able to broadcast radio from inside Auschwitz.

It was like Hogan's Heroes, but without the comedy. But for real. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, the combination of those radio broadcasts, the documents he got smuggled out, and later testimony became known as Vitold's report, which was the first comprehensive eyewitness account of what was going on inside the most notorious of German Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz, where about two million people perished.

Well, Poletsky, his heroics don't end there. The Germans begin to realize, hey, there's stuff going on here that we need to stop. Somebody's stealing stuff, somebody's getting word out about what's happening. And so some of his comrades became fingered by the Nazis and were executed at the camp on the spot. He had reason to believe they were onto him. camp on the spot. He had reason to believe they were onto him. And then he engineered what only 143 people ever successfully did, and that is an escape from Auschwitz. He escaped in 1944, made his way 200 miles to the north in time to join in the battle for Warsaw near the war's end. He was captured. What a nice reward. Yeah. Spend your time in Auschwitz.

Actually be able to escape with documents to prove what's going on just in time to join the front in Warsaw. And then get captured by the Germans again. But because he wasn't Jewish, he didn't have the markings that would have revealed that. And it was the end of the war, a lot of chaos. The Germans didn't realize who they had. He was back in the army but under an alias. They just threw him in a POW camp. If they had known that this was the guy who organized the internal resistance at Auschwitz, they would have hung him or shot him on the spot. Well, he's in a POW camp for the waning weeks of the war, which ended in May of 1945. In that summer, still attached to the

Polish army, he's allowed to go see his wife and children for the first time in several years, but only briefly because the Polish army wants to station him in Italy, where they have a job helping to occupy defeated Italy. And during that summer, helping to occupy defeated Italy. And during that summer, the Poles begin to realize the Soviets don't look like they want to leave Poland. They've marched in from the east and now the war is over, but they're not heading back home. So now the Poles decided we need to get somebody back on the inside to spy on the Soviets to find out what their aims were. And who better to do that, they thought, than Vytold Poletsky. So now he's told, go back into your native country. And for the next two years, he was an undercover spy

doing espionage on Soviet activities until his cover was blown. He was put on a show trial charged with espionage. You can still see to this day the black and white clips of the show trial that they put on on YouTube. And he found guilty. And during that trial, by the way, he didn't try to deny anything. He basically said, sure, I spied on you, and I'd do it again. The museum that was the former prison took me to the very cell where Poletski was held and then showed me the very spot where he took a bullet to the back of the head. Now, he died there in 1948. Poland at that point was now a communist country because of the Soviet occupation. And they, the Polish regime, did not want his name even to be mentioned. His family was under strict orders never to mention his name.

They wanted to expunge him from history. And you might think, well, why? Wouldn't they love to tell the story of how he had fought against the Nazis? Well, yeah, but you can't tell that without also telling the story of him fighting the Soviets. So the communist regime said, we don't want anybody to know anything about him. And so for decades, it was illegal under communism to even mention his name. You go to Poland today though, now that the communists have been gone since 89, there are monuments to him everywhere. This is written in your book,

in this great mortuary of the half living, where nearby someone was wheezing his final breath, someone else was dying, another was struggling out of bed only to fall over onto the floor, another was throwing off his blankets or talking in a fever to his dear mother or shouting or cursing someone out. While still others were refusing to eat or demanding water in a fever and trying to jump out of the window arguing with the doctor asking for something, I lay thinking that I still had the strength to understand everything that was going on and to take it calmly in my stride. Isn't that amazing?

When I read that, I mean, I was just like, holy smokes. Yeah, for three years, he endured all the horrible things at Auschwitz. Unbelievable character, unbelievable courage, and I just wonder if the story of Auschwitz would really be fully understood today if not for this man. Probably not because certainly the first reports are due to him. He helped to shape public understanding of what was going on because he was the first to say along with his comrades, look at what's happening here this is inhuman yeah bravest man I think I've ever learned of. Real heroes.

Thank you for joining us for this special series, An Army of Normal Dead Folks. It be told Pelesky or other episodes have inspired you in general, or better yet to take action by maybe acting heroically in our current time by buying Larry Reed's book, Real Heroes, where the story came from. Or if you have story ideas for this series, please let me know.

I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at NormalFolks.us and I promise you, I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, join the Army at NormalFolks.us. Consider becoming a premium member there. Any and all of these things that will help us grow. An Army of Normal Folks. Thanks to our producer, Ironlight Labs. I'm Bill Courtney.

Until next time, do what you can. Experiencing the news each day can feel like a journey. With Up First from NPR though, it doesn't have to be. Welcome to 15 easy minutes of breaking news, clarity on international and national affairs, and a casual tone that you can take in with breakfast. Begin your day informed, ready, and refreshed. Begin your day with Up First. Subscribe to Up First from NPR on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question.

I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's to help me out like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Estet Herndon. But we're also going to have some fun thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Check out our new season of Next Question with me,

Katie Couric on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if you ask two different people the same set of questions? Even if the questions are the same, our experiences can lead us to drastically different answers. I'm Minnie Driver and I set out to explore this idea in my podcast and now Minnie Questions is returning for another season. We've asked an entirely new set of guests our seven questions including Jane Lynch, Delaney Rowe and Cord Jefferson. Listen to Mini Questions on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Seven Questions, Limitless Answers. Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This past season on my podcast, Here's the Thing, I spoke with more actors, musicians, policy makers, and so many other fascinating people, like writer and actor Dan Aykroyd. I love writing more than anything. You're left alone.

You know, you do three hours in the morning, you write three hours in the afternoon, go pick up a kid from school, and write at night. And after nine hours, you come out with seven pages, and then you're moving on. Listen to the new season of Here's the Thing starting January 28th on the iHeart Radio and then you're moving on.