Elżbieta Witek, the Speaker of Poland’s lower house of parliament, will take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at noon at a monument in Warsaw to Captain Witold Pilecki, known to many as the “Auschwitz Volunteer”.
Meanwhile, Monday marks the first International Day of Heroes of the Fight against Totalitarianism, established by the European Parliament last year to mark the anniversary of Pilecki’s execution.
Pilecki was World War II resistance fighter who alerted the world to the horrors of Nazi Germany’s deadliest Holocaust site.
He volunteered for a secret undercover mission: getting himself arrested by the Germans and sent to the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz in order to smuggle out intelligence.
Pilecki barely survived almost three years of brutality, disease and starvation. He escaped from Auschwitz in 1943, reached Warsaw and fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
After the war he was captured by Poland’s communist security services and executed in 1948.