Witold's Report

Witold Pilecki

Witold's Report, also known as Pilecki's Report, is a report about the Auschwitz concentration camp written in 1943 by Witold Pilecki, a Polish military officer and member of the Polish resistance. Pilecki volunteered in 1940 to be imprisoned in Auschwitz to organize a resistance movement and send out information about the camp. He escaped from Auschwitz in April 1943. His was the first comprehensive record of a Holocaust death camp to be obtained by the Allies.

The report includes details about the gas chambers, "Selektion", and sterilization experiments. It states that there were three crematoria in Auschwitz II capable of cremating 8,000 people daily.[1]

Pilecki's Report preceded and complemented the Auschwitz Protocols, compiled from late 1943, which warned about the mass murder and other atrocities taking place at the camp. The Auschwitz Protocols comprise the Polish Major's Report by Jerzy Tabeau, who escaped with Roman Cieliczko on 19 November 1943 and compiled a report between December 1943 and January 1944; the Vrba-Wetzler report; and the Rosin-Mordowicz report.[2]

  1. ^ Hilberg, Raul (1961). The Destruction of the European Jews (2003 republication ed.). Yale University Press. p. 1212.
  2. ^ Henryk Świebocki (1997). London has been informed—: reports by Auschwitz escapees. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. p. 94. ISBN 83-85047-60-3. The chronological order begins with the 'Polish Major's Report,' Jerzy Tabeau's text from his Polish manuscript, which the ... still in the camp, the memoirs of August Kowalczyk, or the accounts of the late Stanisiaw Chybinski and Witold Pilecki.