The latest Atlantic magazine features the inspirational and ultimately tragic story of the Polish resistance fighter Witold Pilecki, who volunteered to go to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where as many as 1.5 million people were murdered during World War II. It is based on one of Pilecki’s intelligence reports from Auschwitz, which was recently published in English as a book titled The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery.

A fact of WWII rarely acknowledged is that Poland lost six million people, one-fifth of its population, in the Holocaust, which is why Poles are so upset by the casual description of Auschwitz as the “Polish concentration camp”. Poles might have been its first victims but Auschwitz was a Nazi concentration camp. The story of Pilecki’s betrayal, his torture and execution by the Soviets after the war, mirrors the betrayal of Poland by the West. It is a shameful story that is only beginning to be understood outside Poland, thanks in no small part to the work of British historian Norman Davies.

The Atlantic: Read about Pilecki and weep

source The Telegraph