The Auschwitz Volunteer Beyond Bravery Author:Captain Witold Pilecki In September 1940, the Polish Underground wanted to know what was happening inside the recently opened Auschwitz concentration camp. Polish Army officer Witold Pilecki walked calmly into a Nazi German street roundup in Warsaw... and became Auschwitz Prisoner No. 4859. His intelligence reports, smuggled out in 1941, were among the first eyewitnes... more »s accounts of Auschwitz atrocities: the extermination of Soviet POWs, its function as a camp for Polish political prisoners, and the “final solution” for Jews. Pilecki received brutal treatment until he escaped in April 1943; soon after, he wrote a brief report. This book is the first English translation of a 1945 expanded version. In the foreword, Poland's chief rabbi states, “If heeded, Pilecki's early warnings might have changed the course of history.” Pilecki's story was suppressed for half a century after his 1948 arrest by the Polish Communist regime as a “Western spy.” He was executed and expunged from Polish history. Pilecki writes in staccato style but also interjects his observations on humankind's lack of progress: “We have strayed, my friends, we have strayed dreadfully... we are a whole level of hell worse than animals!”« less