Rotmistrz Witold Pilecki in cooperation with the Warsaw Home Army volunteered to be captured by the Nazis and imprisoned in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp to organize the Polish resistance from the inside.

After liberation he served with General Anders and returned to Poland during the soviet occupation and again participated in resistance movement, this time against the Soviet controlled Polish Government. He was arrested in May 1947 and executed in May 25th, 1948. In 1990 his name was rehabilitated by the post-Solidarity Government.