The Spy Who - The Spy Who Infiltrated Auschwitz | The Message | 2

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

Witold Pilecki scolds a new arrival for calling him by his real name. But then he realises: this new arrival might know if his messages are reaching the Allies. And if the Allies are going to act.Have you got a spy story you’d like us to tell? Email your ideas to [e-mail] NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/spywhoTry it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge full seasons of The Spy Who early and ad free on Apple podcasts or the Wondery app. Please be advised, this episode is set inside the Nazi death camp Auschwitz and includes descriptions and references to violence, suicide, mass murder and the Holocaust. March 1941, Nazi occupied Poland. Straight down the lens, don't smile, don't cry. In a small building in the Auschwitz concentration camp, Polish spy Witold Pilecki sits blinking on a stool in front of a powerful light. An SS photographer adjusts

the focus on his camera, then takes Pilecki's picture for the camp's records. It's been six months since Pilecki allowed himself to be arrested by the Nazis. He came to Auschwitz with a secret mission, to smuggle out intelligence about this new German concentration camp, and build a resistance organization among the inmates, with the ultimate goal of liberating the camp. Now he has a secret resistance network, consisting of several hundred prisoners. But with the camp's brutal conditions making a breakout seem impossible, the priority is on keeping each other alive and smuggling out information about the war crimes taking place here.

Turn to the side. You're chewing a wasp. Relax your face. To protect his family, Pilecki entered the camp using the identity of a lawyer called Tomasz Serafinski. But now he fears that these photographs could expose him. If the SS compare them to photos of the real Serafinski, his true identity could be exposed, bringing the risk of immediate execution and retribution for his family. So he's puffing out his cheeks and pulling his

chin downwards to distort his appearance. The ploy risks attracting attention, but it's less dangerous than allowing his true face to appear on German documents. A couple of days after the photoshoot, Pilecki strides through the camp courtyard. He has spent the day laboring in a carpentry workshop. His muscles feel bruised. He is hungry. Suddenly a voice calls out. Pilecki tenses. He senses the other prisoners around the courtyard watching on with interest. He resists the urge to turn around. To do so would expose his true identity.

Pilecki continues walking, but the man who called his name rushes to his side. He throws a friendly arm around Pilecki's shoulder. It's you! The Gestapo chopped my ass into little pieces demanding to know what happened to you, old friend. Quiet! Shh! His friend is taken aback. He removes his arm from around Pilecki's shoulder don't panic i told him i didn't know you obviously don't you remember me of course i remember you but in here my name is tomash do you want to get me killed promise me you will never say my real

name again of course i promise i didn't think Pilecki lengthens his stride leaving the other man standing in the fading light looking ashamed Pilecki feels no his stride, leaving the other man standing in the fading light looking ashamed. Pilecki feels no remorse for his unfriendly response. The incident has not gone unnoticed by other inmates. Now, in this camp where the smallest advantage can mean the difference between survival and death, and desperate, starving prisoners often turn informants for as little as a crusted bread. He must pray nobody uses this information against him. From Wondery, I'm Raaza Jafri and this is The Spy Who.

In the last episode, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and opened Auschwitz to put Polish political prisoners to work as slave laborers. Vitold Pilecki was arrested and sent to the camp where he began organizing the prisoners to form a secret resistance. And the British government opted not to bomb the camp after receiving a report that glossed over its brutality. But Pilecki hasn't given up on his mission. He's determined to keep smuggling information out

and the urgency of the operation is about to increase exponentially. This is episode two, The Message. March 1941, the Records Office, Auschwitz. Enter. Pilecki's stomach tenses with anxiety as he opens the door. An SS officer summoned Pilecki to his office after roll call. He fears the summons means he's been exposed after his friend called out his name a few days ago. Ah, Serafinsky. There you are.

Come in. Don't be shy. I need your help with something. Pilecki approaches the officer's desk. On it, he spots several of the mugshots of prisoners taken a few days earlier, including his own. He adjusts his head slightly, to better see his own picture. He's relieved. It doesn't look like him at all. The officer slides two photographs towards Pilecki. Do you know these two men? Pilecki makes a show of studying the images.

No, sir, I do not. Well, that is strange. Well, they had their photographs taken immediately before and after you. It's odd that you don't even recognize the men you were stood in line with. I don't know what to say, sir. They must not have left much of an impression on me. Or maybe they don't look like they do in real life. Well, that could explain it, sir.

The officer picks up the photograph of Pilecki and holds it in the air. Just like this photograph of you doesn't look like you. The officer looks between Pilecki's face and the image. What the hell is going on here? Pilecki thinks fast. Sir, I've had a terrible kidney complaint. One of the symptoms is puffiness around the glands. Mercifully your camp doctors put me on the road to recovery. The officer stares at Pilecki. The spy holds his gaze, eager to not do anything that might betray the lie. If he is exposed, the complex resistance network he has established within the camp is finished.

He is the only person who knows who runs all of its disconnected cells. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the SS officer nods sharply. Fine. Dismissed. July 1941. The Carpentry Workshop, Auschwitz. Pilecki is hard at work when he notices a member of his resistance network, a 19-year-old with a dimpled chin and baby cheeks on the verge of tears. Edek, are you okay, son? Edek's lip quivers. Pilecki feels a surge of empathy.

He cannot imagine how difficult it is for someone so young to be a daily witness to the camp's endless miseries. Almost every morning a prisoner hurls himself against the electric fence, a desperate attempt to escape this life, one way or another. Pilecki can sense the young man considering a similar cause of action. He gently rests his hand on Edek's shoulder. You're not alone, okay? There are hundreds of us in here together, all working towards a common goal, escape. And with your help, we can and we will succeed. Edek looks up at Pilecki. He is getting through to the

teenager. The German victories on the outside can only postpone their final defeat. You want to be around to see their defeat, do you not? Edek wipes the tears from his eyes and nods. I do. Thank you. I count only on you, sir. Pilecki forces a smile. I count only on you, sir. Pilecki forces a smile.

Inside, he understands precisely what Edek is feeling. Their mission seems hopeless. Death looms. Nobody he fears is coming to help. But Pilecki has other prisoners who look up to him now. He cannot allow fear and doubt to take hold. If he falters, all those who find hope in his leadership will crumble too, and the resistance will be finished. Two months later, Block 17A.

It's long past sunset, and as the autumn night chills, Pilecki lies on his lice-infested mattress, struggling to sleep. His spy network's tendrils now extend across the camp complex. Pilecki's men continue to bear witness to Nazi crimes, working to find ways to smuggle out letters recording what they've seen to the wider world. At times he feels dispirited that there is little his resistance can do, and yet he takes comfort in the knowledge that his people in the labor office can help assign its members to useful, less onerous roles that, if nothing else, will help extend their lives. Occasionally his men work outside the camp, where they have the chance to steal food or

cigarettes, which can be used to bribe the Capos. He still clings to the hope that the Allies might bomb the camp, and at very least the work of resistance provides its members a purpose for their miserable days. The sound of several heavy-laden trucks entering the camp disturbs Pilecki's thoughts. He gets out of bed and tries to get a look at what's happening outside through a window. He watches a stream of prisoners disembark the vehicles, the men wearing Soviet uniforms. Pilecki knows from listening to the radio

he and his men have stolen that German forces are advancing on Moscow and Leningrad. But the arrival of captured Soviet soldiers at the camp still surprises him. Why would the Germans bring them to Poland? Pilecki watches SS guards escort the prisoners into the closed court of the penal block. The trucks depart, and an eerie silence descends. Pilecki returns to his bunk.

Then... the silence shatters. Pilecki races back to the window and presses his ear against the wooden boards. He hears a cacophony of screams coming from the penal block. The sound of several hundred Soviet men dying as one. Through the cracks, he sees German officers loitering outside the block, wearing gas masks. Then the screaming stops and gives way to a chilling silence.

March 1942, Auschwitz. It's six months since the Soviets were gassed and Pilecki now works at the camp's increasingly busy construction office, which plans and oversees building work at the rapidly expanding camp. Pilecki waits for a guard to look the other way and sneaks out of the main office. He enters the corridor, walks to the off-limits radio room and ducks inside. Pilecki rifles through shelves laden with spare parts. He enters the corridor, walks to the off-limits radio room, and ducks inside. Pilecki rifles through shelves laden with spare parts.

One of his newest recruits is an electrician who says he can build a radio transmitter for sending Morse code. So Pilecki's on a mission to steal the parts he needs. Things are changing at Auschwitz. Since the gassing of the Soviets, men in Pilecki's network have reported that the Nazis are constructing a second camp two miles away. They call it Birkenau. Pilecki guesses it will eventually house Soviet prisoners of war, but for now the gassings continue apace. His agent in the camp's records office reports that of the 12,000 Soviets who've arrived in recent

months, fewer than 100 are still alive. His men are also reporting that thousands of Jews, including women and children, have recently started to arrive each day. They are being sent straight to Birkenau. Pilecki is desperate to alert the Polish resistance to these horrors, and a radio transmitter would give him a new way to do so. There you are. Pilecki's fingers grasp the component he's been searching for. He places it in the deep pocket that he has sewn into his overalls. Then he peeks around the door, and finding the corridor empty, emerges nonchalantly, ready to stash the part in his supply cupboard near the bathroom.

But once he's collected all the parts, he needs to transport them across open ground to the garbage pit. There, an agent on garbage duty will collect and smuggle the parts back to the prison blocks, building the thing. That's the easy part. A couple of weeks later. In the construction office, Pilecki and one of his most trusted agents, Kon, are working late. It's a quiet night and there's only one SS guard watching over them. So they've decided tonight is their best chance to smuggle the stolen radio parts to the garbage pit. Pilecki jumps to his feet. Ah, my stomach! Ah! Pilecki jumps to his feet. Ah, my stomach! Ah!

Pilecki hurries away. He has been feigning diarrhea, using his trips to the toilet to smuggle the parts out of the cupboard and into a box in the bathroom, while Con distracts the guard with card tricks. Once in the bathroom and out of sight, Pilecki places the last stolen part into the box. Now it's over to Kon to get it to the garbage pit. He glances out of the bathroom window towards the pit just a couple of hundred yards away,

then returns to the office. As he enters, he locks eyes with Kon and gives him a subtle nod. Two men pass one another. Con heads to the bathroom. Pilecki resumes his work at the bench. The SS guard ignores them. Too busy focusing on trying to replicate the card trick, Con showed him moments earlier.

The SS guard looks up at the sound of an altercation outside. Pilecki feels a surge of panic. Has Con been caught trying to sneak out of the window? Pilecki leaps to his feet. He has to distract the guard from what's happening outside. Pilecki races to the bathroom. He hammers his fist on the toilet's locked door. Open up! I'm about to spoil myself!

Behind the door, Pilecki hears Con scrambling back into the toilet through the window. Hurry up in there! Finally! Con emerges from the toilet and, as the two men pass, he flashes Pilecki a subtle thumbs up. The box is in place. Soon they will have their radio transmitter. The next month, the camp's courtyard. That's them. The French Jews. Pilecki looks in the direction one of his recruits is pointing. He sees a small group of new

arrivals huddled together. Pilecki strolls over to them, trying not to attract the attention of the capos or guards. Welcome, if that's the word. Who are you? What do you want? Relax, I'm a friend. I just hoped you might know what's been happening in the war. We get no news in here. I doubt we know any more than you do. We were prisoners in a camp in France. Then one day they told us to pack. What a joke, as if we had any belongings. Anyway, all they said is we'd be working in factories in the east, but this doesn't seem much like a factory. As he listens to the man's story, Bielecki realises that the scale of the Nazi plans

for Auschwitz are far greater than he had imagined. It used to be that only Poles were sent here. Now, the Germans are bringing Jews from other parts of Nazi-controlled Europe to Auschwitz. He needs to report this, but his network is still missing parts for their radio transmitter. Unless he can find an alternative way to get the word out soon, dozens, possibly hundreds of people will die each day. May 1942, a few weeks after the French Jews arrived at the camp. In Block 17A, Pilecki sits up in his bed as one of his recruits, a professional boxer named Teddy, beckons him to follow.

Tomas, come with me. We need to talk. The pair find a quiet corner of the block What's going on? I was hiding in the stable during that last lockdown saw a trainload of Jews arrive men women and children, maybe 600 all told and in the crematory courtyard the Gestapo Chief told them they were to be disinfected

After that, he said they could rest and eat soup. They then packed them into the building shut the doors and screwed them shut and Pilecki puts a hand on Teddy's shoulder. What then? Then SS men wearing gas masks appeared on the roof of the crematory. They opened the hatches in the ceilings. The people inside must have seen them because that's when the panic started. Like the Soviets. What happened then? They dropped gas canisters inside. The screams, the hammering

against the door, the cot. The two men sit for a moment in silence. There's more. After it went quiet, they vented the place and sent in Jews from the penal colony. But they hadn't cleared the bodies? No. The second group came out with handfuls of clothes, jewelry, watches, bags, even hair. They loaded it all into crates, and trucks took it all away. Pilecki sits in silence. A few months ago he believed the Soviets had been gassed simply because there was no room to imprison them. A few weeks ago he believed the Nazis were bringing Jews here from all over Europe to swell the workforce. But he was wrong. This is something else. Extermination. Plunder.

Whatever their plan, Pilecki realizes that Auschwitz is no longer the prison camp he entered a year ago. Back then, death was only a possibility. Now, it feels inevitable. A few days later, in a secluded area away from the camp's courtyard, Witold Pilecki meets with another of his recruits, a Polish colonel who has just been interrogated by the Gestapo.

They let you go then, barely. Pilecki looks around to check there's nobody in earshot. What did they want to know? With whom I spend my time? Who the leaders are? Whether there is a secret underground. What did you tell them? Oh, I pointed to your mugshot on the wall and told them you've squirreled away two tons of dynamite. Nothing, obviously. But the fact they asked the question is concerning. We need to act soon. But the fact they asked the question is concerning. We need to act soon.

I've been observing. Of the two and a half thousand SS men here, a third are off duty or on leave at any given time. Pilecki screws up his face. We have only a thousand recruits, and we're weak, hungry, and unarmed. Even if they sent half the camp guard home on leave, we'd still be outgunned and outnumbered. True. But we have the advantage of surprise. If they sent half the camp guard home on leave, we'd still be outgunned and outnumbered. True.

But we have the advantage of surprise. We strike in the evening as squads return from work, and the camp is in maximum flux. If we overwhelm them and break into the weapons store, we have a chance. And once all the other prisoners see what's happening, they'll join us. Piedadsky sighs wearily. He does not share the colonel's optimism. It will be a bloodbath, and anyone left behind will suffer terribly. They'll kill ten men for every one escapee. Not if we render the camp inoperable.

There's no way. Our only chance is to coordinate with the resistance on the outside. If they attack from the outside, we could split the Germans' attention, but it would take time to organize. This isn't something we can make happen in a few days. The Colonel looks momentarily disappointed. Fine, but we can't wait long. Dozens of us are dying every week,

and the Gestapo knows something is up. Time is failing us. You need to ask Warsaw to act, and soon. Later that week, inside the camp hospital that caters to the SS guards, the young boxer Teddy heads into the basement. Inside, working alone, is Vitold Kosztowny. Before being imprisoned, Kosztowny was a bacteriologist, so the SS had put him to work making typhus vaccines. A recent outbreak of the Lysborn disease has caused SS officers to keep their distance

from the prisoners. They fear catching the disease, which can prove fatal. But as a cleaner in the SS's own hospital block, Teddy has a chance to take the epidemic to the Nazis. Tomasz sent me. Are our little biological weapons ready for their mission? Kostovny grins and carefully removes a vial from its hiding place. He lifts it up to Teddy's face.

The inside of the glass wriggles with hundreds of lice. Ready and reporting for duty, sir. Disgusting, but brilliant. If we can get these little shits onto the SS officer's uniforms, they'll do the rest. Teddy slips the vial of lice into his pocket, grabs a mop and bucket from the cupboard, and heads back upstairs. As he mops the cloakroom floor, Teddy slowly inches towards the German uniforms hanging from pegs on the wall. Few prisoners are allowed in here, so the officers think it's safe.

As he draws alongside the clothes, Teddy removes a vial of lice from his coat pocket. He checks up and down the corridor one last time, then removes the stopper and sprinkles the vermin over the uniforms. Some tumble onto the floor, but most manage to cling on. Teddy replaces the cork stopper, takes out his mop, and resumes his whistling with a little more joy in the tune. That same month, the camp courtyard. In the middle of a spring downpour,

Pilecki meets with one of his agents, a man named Stefan Bielecki. Pilecki has been unable to put the mass executions of Jews in Birkenau from his mind, but his network is still missing two of the parts it needs to construct its radio transmitter. So it's time to break someone out of Auschwitz who can tell the world what is happening. And as an experienced member of the Warsaw Resistance, Bielecki is the ideal candidate. The risk is too high. If they catch me, they'll execute me on the spot, Stefan. The Gestapo already suspect you are a saboteur.

They could come for you at any moment. This way you have a chance to live, and you can help others survive too. Galecki considers the plan for a moment. How, though? And am I supposed to do this by myself? There is a farm outside the camp. The Germans have asked for a delegation of strong workers to renovate the place. That will get you outside the camp. And I have someone else in mind to accompany

you. Vincente. He's a brilliant, fit young man. I trust you with my life. Working together, you have a good chance. Bieledzki thinks it over. The timing is fortuitous. The Nazis' focus on industrial-scale murder means they have recently dropped the practice of punishment executions for other prisoners escape attempts. At least now it's only their lives he and his accomplice would be risking. Okay I know Vincenti. He's a good man. I'm in. Listen if you make it. You must pass a message to the Warsaw Underground. Tell them what happened to the Soviet POWs. But the most important thing is to tell them what's happening to the Jews.

These are war crimes. Hell, these are worse than war crimes. What's happening here is an abomination. Pilecki grabs him by the shoulders. You tell them about the gas chambers. Tell them about the teenagers being worked to death. About the screaming and the looting and all the other horrors we see every day. The world must know.

Even if it means we're all bombed to oblivion, this must stop. A few days later, Hami Anzher farm near Auschwitz, late afternoon. Vincent and Bialetzky stroll casually past the SS guards, their hearts racing, and into the farm's carpentry workshop. Bialetzky has made a habit of tidying the workshop each afternoon so the guards pay them no attention. The two friends close the door behind them and pause to listen if they've been followed.

Vincente grabs a heavy axe from a workbench, just in case. Put that down. We're good to go. Come. One after the other, the two men climb onto the desk below a window that has a broken latch. Vincente goes first, slipping through the small gap. Wieliczki follows moments later. moments later.

In the half-light of early evening, the two men scale the low fence and, in a hurried crouch, make their way down the road towards a large pond. They plan to use the water to cover their tracks from the dogs. Somewhere behind them, the escapees hear the sound of the farmhouse doors burst open. Vincente grabs Bielecki's arm. Go! Run!

His vision blurred with adrenaline. Bielecki glances behind to check how close the guards are. He turns back and, to his horror, sees an SS man on a bicycle now coming from the opposite direction. Bielecki d coming from the opposite direction. Bialeski dives into the cold water. Vincente takes a deep breath and follows. When they reach the middle of the pond, the two friends submerge themselves and try to remain still under the brackish water.

The slightest ripple could give them away. Bialeski breaks the surface of the water and tries to take a quick and quiet breath. His eyes widen as he spots the SS man holding the bicycle, surveying the pond. Bialeski ducks beneath the surface again. After a few moments, the two escapees break the surface again and catch eyes. Then they look towards the far bank. The SS man is peddling his bicycle away at speed.

How did he not see us? I don't think he had a weapon. Not much he could have done. Well, he probably used up the last of our good fortune let's get out of here they dragged themselves out of the water and run dripping towards the cover of the forest as they reached the tree line Vincente turns back to look at the camp fuck you to look at the camp. Fuck you! The Polish Army July 1942, Nazi occupied Poland, two months after the escape.

Napoleon Seguiada arrives at the train station in the town of Oświęcim. He's a Polish agent with the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, the British wartime intelligence service tasked with running missions behind enemy lines. Several days earlier, the Polish underground in Warsaw sent the 33-year-old spy on a fact-finding mission after the Auschwitz escapees, Pilecki and Vincente, delivered Pielecki's harrowing report. Tegierda makes his way through the countryside toward a village where he has been told to rendezvous with a local member of the Polish resistance. From there the SOE needs him to survey Auschwitz and gather further evidence of what is happening inside,

before returning to London with his eyewitness report. Yes? A tall man with a balding pate and a handlebar moustache appears at the door of his cottage, his dog enthusiastically barking behind him. Zagierda is taken aback. The man looks like an English gentleman, not a member of the Polish resistance. Hello. I think you've been expecting me. I have come a long way. Yes, yes. Come in. Hitler! Shut your mouth! You named your dog Hitler? Oh, don't worry about him. This furry furor's bark really is worse than his bite. Zagierda gingerly passes the dog and nods at the man's wife and teenage daughter, who eye him suspiciously from the kitchen.

Don't be shy. Take a seat. You must be tired. Zagierda sits on a comfy chair. Thank you. I passed an SS patrol on my way here. They're like vermin. Never run the place. What's the burned-out ruin down the road? A synagogue? The resistance member hands Sagierda a glass of water. I think you know why I'm here.

What can you tell me? You've heard what they're doing in there. Sagierda nods gravely. It's all true, from what I can tell anyway. Auschwitz isn't a camp so much as a complex. Our agents are in the original camp. Auschwitz won. It's the work camp.

That's why they're still alive. Well, some of them, anyway. The second camp, Birkenau, that's the place you really don't want to end up. I see the trucks and the trains, thousands disembark. Then the smoke starts to rise. Surely not. You don't need to take my word for it. We have letters.

I don't know who wrote them, but they were smuggled out by our people in the camp. Look, the man nods at the sideboard, where there are piles of letters. Start by reading those, letter after letter, all saying the same thing. Bomb the camp, end this madness. Can I speak with whomever is running the resistance inside? Impossible. But we can get him a message. What would you like to ask?

Several days later, in his block, Pilecki pens a letter detailing what he knows about the mass murder of Jews at Birkenau. Pilecki has spent almost two years in Auschwitz. When he arrived, it was a brutal concentration camp for Poles who opposed the Nazis. Now it's a death camp. Around a thousand Jews arrive at Auschwitz each day. Most disembark the train, and within the hour are dead.

There is, however, a glimmer of hope. Pilecki has received a message from outside the camp that Resistance has sent an agent. He wants information. Here, Con, take this. Give it to Kazhimezh, its highest priority. Pilecki's close confidant, Kon, hides the letter in his sleeve and makes for the courtyard. There, Kon brushes past Kazimierz Yajambowski, an engineer who

works on a nearby construction site. Yajambowski takes the letter, then, when no one's watching, slips it into the map cylinder he's carrying. The following day, Yajambovsky leaves for another shift on the construction site. He uses a cigarette to bribe a guard to look the other way. Then he stashes the letter in some bushes. Yajambovsky and the other prisoners on the construction duty march toward a bridge. As they approach, he begins to whistle a tune. On the far side of the bridge, a six-year-old boy on a bicycle listens to the tune intently. It's the signal he's been told to listen out for.

The boy pedals past the prisoners and towards the bush where Jarzombovsky hit the letter. Polish spy Napoleon Szegierda opens the door of the cottage where he is staying. Wordlessly, the boy on the bicycle hands him a letter, then cycles away. Szegierda rips the letter out of its makeshift envelope. His eyes scan the scratchy writing, the message, tallies with everything he has been told by others. Half-staffed prisoners, the endless thrum of the crematory, the screams and gunshots that ring out. Combined with his own scouting of the Auschwitz camps, he has what he needs.

Tomorrow he will make his way to London, on a mission to inform the Allies that Auschwitz is no longer a brutal labour camp, but a death camp. The death camp at the heart of the Nazi scheme to wipe out the Jews. August 30th, 1942, several weeks later. Auschwitz 1. Pilecki stumbles into the hospital ward. He is pale and emaciated. For several days he's been unable to keep any food down. His joints ache. He has a fever, a rash and a headache. The telltale signs of typhus. As he stumbles forward, his friend and fellow agent, Dr. Dering, notices him.

Good God, man. Why didn't you come to see me sooner? Dering puts his arm around Pilecki and supports his weight. I thought it would pass. Fool. You know what they do to the sick in here? Quick, let's get you to bed. Pilecki knows Dering is right. The SS regularly orders the execution of Typhus Sophorus. But seeking treatment is a wager too. There's a risk he could be experimented on.

I can't. I can't. My men need me. Find a lot of good you'll be to them in this state. Save your strength. I'll put you in the quarantine ward. The guards rarely dare to go in there. Dering half-lifts his friend onto an empty raised wooden bunk in the quarantine ward. Pilecki pulls the cover over himself, shivering uncontrollably.

He glances at the patients around him. Some of them appear to not be moving Pelesky's eyelids drop and he tumbles Into unconsciousness Wondery plus subscribers can binge full seasons of the spy who early and add free on Apple podcasts or the Have you got a spy story you'd like us to tell? Email your ideas to thespywho at wonderi.com From Wondery, this is the second episode in our season, The Spy Who Infiltrated Auschwitz. A quick note about our dialogue. We can't know everything that was said or done behind closed doors, particularly far back in history.

But our scenes are written using the best available sources. So even if a scene or conversation has been recreated for dramatic effect, it's still based on biographical research. We've used various sources to make this series, including The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather and Vitold's Report from Auschwitz by Vitold Pilecki. To find trusted information about Auschwitz, including survivors' testimonies, you can visit Auschwitz.org. The Spy Who is hosted by me, Raza Jaffrey.

Our show is produced by Vespucci, with writing and story editing by Yellow Ant for Wondery. For Yellow Ant, this episode was written by Simon Parkin and researched by Louise Byrne, with special thanks to Jakub Czaszutka. Our managing producer is Jay Priest. For Vespucci, our senior producers are Ashley Clivary and Philippa Gearing. Our sound designer is Ivor Manley. Rachel Byrne is the supervising producer. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Fris & Sink. Executive producers for Vespucci are Johnny Galvin and Daniel Turkin. Executive producer for Yellow Ant is Tristan Donovan. Our producer for Wondery is Theodora Louloudis

and our managing producer is Rachel Sibley. Executive producers for Wondery are Estelle Doyle, Chris Bourne, Morgan Jones and Marshall Lewy.