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Speaker 1: So he volunteered to get arrested by the Germans, hoping

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Speaker 1: that they wouldn't simply shoot him, and that they might

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Speaker 1: then send him to this place called Auschwitz so he

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Speaker 1: could find out from the inside what was going on

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Speaker 1: and hopefully smuggle out documents or somehow get the word out.

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Speaker 1: He got his wish.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.

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Speaker 2: I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,

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Speaker 2: I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an

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Speaker 2: inter City Memphis and that last part I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Somehow we won an Oscar for the film about our team.

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Speaker 2: It's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will just

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Speaker 2: never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and

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Speaker 2: nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on

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Speaker 2: CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. Guys,

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Speaker 2: that's us, you and me deciding, Hey, you know what

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Speaker 2: I can help. And that's exactly what be told. Poletski did,

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Speaker 2: as you just heard. And there's a bunch more to

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Speaker 2: his heroism, which are about to hear from real heroes

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Speaker 2: author Larry Reid. As we pay tribute to him as

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Speaker 2: part of our special series drum Roll and Army of

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Speaker 2: Normal Dead Folks. Right after these brief messages from our

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Speaker 2: general sponsors, here's one that this guy may be the

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Speaker 2: bravest human being I've ever heard of in my life.

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Speaker 2: Anybody to purposely get himself captured, to go into a

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Speaker 2: concentration camp, to be brutally beaten, just in order to

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Speaker 2: let people know about what was really going on inside him. Yes,

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Speaker 2: now that's a guy, and I don't want to mispronounce

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Speaker 2: his name, but I think it's We're told Pilecki, Peletski.

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Speaker 2: He told Peletski Okay, bravery beyond measure. Wow, that's the truth.

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Speaker 2: Tell us about mister Puleski.

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Speaker 1: Okay. I did not meet him. He was executed by

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Speaker 1: the Soviet Communists in nineteen forty eight, but I did

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Speaker 1: meet his son. His son and his daughter are still

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Speaker 1: living well in their nineties today. V Told Puletski played

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Speaker 1: an important role as a teenager when Poland reappeared on

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Speaker 1: the map after one hundred and twenty three year absence

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Speaker 1: at the end of World War One. Poland regained its

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Speaker 1: independence with the end of that war, but immediately was

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Speaker 1: invaded by Lenin and the Bolsheviks from the Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: then Russia soon to become the Soviet Union, because they

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Speaker 1: wanted to take Poland back, and Poletski fought, was decorated

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Speaker 1: for bravery, and Poland succeeded in throwing back the Soviets

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Speaker 1: under Lendin and for the next eighteen years, Poletski raises

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Speaker 1: a family and normal guy. Yeap, highly regarded. He had

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Speaker 1: been decorated, as I say, during the war, but he

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Speaker 1: was just a normal guy.

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Speaker 2: Highly discreat for his bravery in war, but yep, that

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Speaker 2: wasn't his life. His life was his wife, his good.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and his small business. And so he was

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Speaker 1: also known as a philanthropist as his business grew. But

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Speaker 1: then in nineteen thirty nine, Hitler invades Poland from the west,

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Speaker 1: and by agreement with the Soviets, two weeks later, Stalin

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Speaker 1: invades Poland from the east.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you know, no, God goodness, if you're Poland.

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Well, the Poles didn't roll over and

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Speaker 1: play dead. They immediately formed powerful resistance movement. Peletski said

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Speaker 1: goodbye to his family as he joined the Polish army

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Speaker 1: again and fought against both the Soviets and the Nazis.

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Speaker 1: Within a year, the Polish resistance became aware of a

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Speaker 1: complex being built near Krakoff in southern Poland, a huge,

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Speaker 1: sprawling complex that was at first a prison for Poles

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Speaker 1: that the Nazis were creating. It was not yet the

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Speaker 1: Jewish concentration camp we know today as Auschwitz. It would

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Speaker 1: soon become that. But Poletski was one of those who said,

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Speaker 1: we need to get someone on the inside to find

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Speaker 1: out what's going on there and tell the world, find

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Speaker 1: out what's happening to our comrades. So he volunteered to

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Speaker 1: get arrested by the Germans, hoping that they wouldn't simply

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Speaker 1: shoot him, and that they might then send him to

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Speaker 1: this place called Auschwitz so he could find out from

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Speaker 1: the inside what was going on and hopefully smuggle out

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Speaker 1: documents or some I'll get the word out. He got

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Speaker 1: his wish, he was sentenced.

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Speaker 2: This man had a wife and kids, yeah, two kids.

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Speaker 2: We're not talking about a twenty two year old guy here.

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Speaker 2: We're talking about this guy and is in his late thirties.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 2: And he purposely gets captured, yep, so that he can

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Speaker 2: be sent to Auschwitz. Ye, so that he can document

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Speaker 2: what was really going on another story, similar to these

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Speaker 2: other stories where people just complacent, people don't really want

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Speaker 2: to know what's going on. That's what he's going to

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Speaker 2: put it in their faces. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: What an extraordinary man he was, And I echo what

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Speaker 1: you said at the start of this bill that he

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Speaker 1: is I think the bravest person I've ever come to

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Speaker 1: know of. I don't know of anybody braver than he

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Speaker 1: told Poleski. Well, while he was in Auschwitz, of course

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Speaker 1: he was subjected to inhumane treatment and disease and all

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Speaker 1: the punishing consequences of being holed up in such a place.

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Speaker 2: And ye had lie stomach issues. Besides the beating, the

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Speaker 2: environment itself killed people.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, he saw it every day. But at

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Speaker 1: the same time he was looking for every opportunity to

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Speaker 1: find people in prison as he was, who could help

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Speaker 1: him form some sort of internal resistance. He built a group,

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Speaker 1: gave it a name, and these were people. These were

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Speaker 1: prisoners who would help him smuggle out documents, stealing from

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Speaker 1: the offices of the German High Command. They smuggled out

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Speaker 1: documents for about six months. They actually built from crude

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Speaker 1: materials a radio transmitter and from inside Ouschwitz they were

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Speaker 1: broadcasting a message over.

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Speaker 2: That's the craziest thing ever. Yeah, for six bays actually

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Speaker 2: were able to broadcast radio from inside Austlers.

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Speaker 1: It was like Hogan's Heroes, but without the comedy, but

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Speaker 1: for real, Yeah, exactly. Well, the combination of those radio broadcasts,

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Speaker 1: the documents he got smuggled out, and later testimony became

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Speaker 1: known as Vitold's Report, which was the first comprehensive eyewitness

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Speaker 1: account of what was going on inside the most notorious

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Speaker 1: of German Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz, where about two million

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Speaker 1: people perished. Well, Peletski his heroics don't end there. The

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Speaker 1: Germans begin to realize, Hey, there's stuff going on here

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Speaker 1: that we need to stop. Somebody's stealing stuff, somebody's getting

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Speaker 1: worried out about what's happening, and so some of his

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Speaker 1: comrades became fingered by the Nazis and were executed at

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Speaker 1: the camp on the spot. He had reason to believe

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Speaker 1: they were on to him, and then he engineered what

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Speaker 1: only one hundred and forty three people ever successfully did,

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Speaker 1: and that is an escape from Auschwitz. He escaped in

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty four, made his way two hundred miles to

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Speaker 1: the north in time to join in the battle for Warsaw.

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Speaker 1: Near the war's end, he was captured in.

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Speaker 2: An ice reward. Yeah, spend your tim in Oshwitz actually

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Speaker 2: be able to escape with documents to prove what's going on,

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Speaker 2: just in time to join the front in Warsaw.

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Speaker 1: And then get captured by the Germans again. But because

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Speaker 1: he wasn't Jewish, she didn't have the markings that would

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Speaker 1: have revealed that. And it was the end of the war.

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Speaker 1: A lot of chaos. The Germans didn't realize who they had.

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Speaker 1: He was back in the army, but under an alias.

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Speaker 1: They just threw him in a pow camp. If they

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Speaker 1: had known that this was the guy who organized the

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Speaker 1: internal resistance at Auschwitz, they would have hung him or

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Speaker 1: shot him on the spot. Well, he's in a pow

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Speaker 1: camp for the waning weeks of the war, which ended

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Speaker 1: in May of nineteen forty five. In that summer, still

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Speaker 1: attached to the Polish Army, he's allowed to go see

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Speaker 1: his wife and children for the first time in several years,

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Speaker 1: but only briefly because the Polish Army wants to station

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Speaker 1: him in Italy, where they have a job helping to

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Speaker 1: occupy defeated Italy, and during that summer, the Poles begin

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Speaker 1: to realize the Soviets don't look like they want to

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Speaker 1: leave Poland. They've marched in from the east and now

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Speaker 1: the war's over, but they're not heading back home. So

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Speaker 1: now the Poles decided, we need to get somebody back

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Speaker 1: on the inside to spy on the Soviets to find

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Speaker 1: out what their aims were. And who better to do that,

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Speaker 1: they thought, than ve told Poletski. So now he's told

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Speaker 1: go back into your native country. And for the next

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Speaker 1: two years he was an undercover spy doing espionage on

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Speaker 1: Soviet activities until his cover was blown. He was put

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Speaker 1: on a show trial charged with espionage. You can still

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Speaker 1: see to this day the black and white clips of

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Speaker 1: the show trial that they put on on YouTube. And

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Speaker 1: he found guilty. And during that trial, by the way,

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Speaker 1: he didn't try to deny anything. He said basically said, sure,

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Speaker 1: I spied on you, and I'd do it again. The

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Speaker 1: museum that was the former prison took me to the

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Speaker 1: very cell where Peletski was held and then showed me

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Speaker 1: the very spot where he took a bullet to the

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Speaker 1: back of the head. Now he died there in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty eight. Poland at that point was now a Communist

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Speaker 1: country because of the Soviet occupation, and they, the Polish regime,

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Speaker 1: did not want his name even to be mentioned. His

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Speaker 1: family was under strict orders never to mention his name.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to expunge him from history. And you might think, well,

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Speaker 1: why wouldn't they love to tell the story of how

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Speaker 1: he had fought against the Nazis. Well, yeah, but you

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Speaker 1: can't tell that without also telling the story of him

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Speaker 1: fighting fighting the Soviets. So the communist regime said, we

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Speaker 1: don't want anybody to know anything about him, and so

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Speaker 1: for decades it was illegal under Communism to even mention

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Speaker 1: his name. You go to Poland today, though, now that

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Speaker 1: the Communists have been gone since eighty nine, there are

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Speaker 1: monuments to him everywhere.

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Speaker 2: This is written in your book, and this great mortuary

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Speaker 2: of the half living. Where nearby someone was wheezing his

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Speaker 2: final breath, someone else was dying, Another was struggling out

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Speaker 2: of bed, only to fall over onto the floor. Another

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Speaker 2: was throwing off his blankets, or talking in a fever

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Speaker 2: to his dear mother, or shouting or cursing someone out

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Speaker 2: while still others were refusing to eat or demanding water

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Speaker 2: in a fever and trying to jump out of the window,

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Speaker 2: arguing with the doctor asking for something. I lay thinking

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Speaker 2: that I still had the strength to understand everything that

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Speaker 2: was going on and to take it calmly in.

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Speaker 1: Mustrade, Isn't that amazing?

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Speaker 2: When I read that? I mean, I was just like,

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Speaker 2: holy smokes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for three years he endured all the horrible things.

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Speaker 2: Unbelievable character, unbelievable courage, And I just wonder if the

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Speaker 2: story of Auschwitz would really be fully understood today if

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Speaker 2: not for this man.

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Speaker 1: Probably not, because certainly the first reports are due to him.

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Speaker 1: He helped to shape public understanding of what was going

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Speaker 1: on because he was the first to say, along with

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Speaker 1: his comrades, look at what's happening here. This is inhumane.

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Speaker 1: Bravest man, I think I've ever learned of real hearers.

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Speaker 2: Yep, thank you for joining us for this special series

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Speaker 2: and army of normal dead folks. It be told Puleski

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Speaker 2: or other episodes have inspired you in general, or better yet,

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Speaker 2: to take action by maybe acting heroically in our current time.

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Speaker 2: By by Larry Read's book Real Heroes, where the story

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Speaker 2: came from or if you have story ideas for this series,

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Speaker 2: please let me know. I'd love to hear about it.

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Speaker 2: You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us,

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Speaker 2: and I promise you I will respond. If you enjoyed

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Speaker 2: this episode, share a friends and on social subscribe to

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Speaker 2: the podcast, rate it, review it, Join the army at

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Speaker 2: normalfolks dot us, consider becoming a Premium member. There any

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Speaker 2: and all of these things that will help us grow

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Speaker 2: an army of normal folks. Thanks to our producer, iron

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Speaker 2: Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what

215
00:13:41,640 --> 00:13:41,960
Speaker 2: you can