The "Pilecki Family Home" Museum was opened today, Wednesday 2 November, in Ostrów Mazowiecka, in the presence of the President of Poland and the Deputy Minister for Culture.
Witold Pilecki (1901-1948) was a Polish cavalry officer and covert resistance leader in World War II. He volunteered to infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp and prepared the "Witold Report" on what he witnessed. He later escaped and participated in the Warsaw Uprising. Pilecki was arrested, tortured and executed by the communist authorities in 1948.
The Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, has said that Pilecki "exhibited incomprehensible bravery in the face of incomprehensible evil."
Also present at the Museum's opening ceremony were members of Pilecki's family. His son, Andrzej Pilecki, recalled the key role of his mother, as well as his father.
The Museum's main curator, Aleksandra Kaiper-Miszułowicz, said, "What is most important for me in Witold Pilecki, what gives all of us hope, is that he was an ordinary person. He was a completely regular human being who followed his values - they were sovereign in him."
Sources: PAP, polskieradio.pl
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Click on the audio player above for a report by Radio Poland's Agnieszka Bielawska.