This is Witold Pilecki.
And he's one of the bravest people to ever live.
He was born in 1901 in Poland.
His family was nobility, but they took part in an uprising against Russia.
Their property was taken away and they were exiled.
So he joined the army to make a living.
Around this time, Poland and Russia went to war.
Witold fought in many battles often sneaking behind enemy lines.
He survived the war, and then joined another one.
He fought against the Germans in World War II.
During the invasion of Poland, Witold and his platoon took out seven German tanks and three airplanes.
But it wasn't enough.
Poland was overrun by the Germans
The Polish general put out an order for all surviving soldiers to retreat to France.
But Witold disobeyed that order.
He stayed in Poland and founded the Secret Polish Army.
They were a resistance group that would fight the Germans from the shadows.
And this is where Witold Pilecki would show how brave he really was.
The Germans had opened a secret camp in Poland called Auschwitz.
No one knew what went on there.
But they knew that Jewish people and political enemies were getting sent there and never returning.
So Witold decided to get himself captured and sent to Auschwitz so he could report on what happened inside.
And he did it.
His underground network found out that the Germans would be raiding a neighborhood looking for resistance fighters.
So Witold made sure he was there for the raid.
He got picked up by the police and sent to Auschwitz.
While in the prison, he was forced to do slave labor and caught pneumonia.
But he also made reports about the atrocities going on inside.
He was a prisoner for three years.
Then he decided it was time to escape.
He tricked the German soldiers watching him into a shed, barricaded the door, cut the phone lines, and took off running.
He made it to a safehouse just in time to join a full scale rebellion against the Germans.
But the rebellion failed.
He spent the next year as a POW in a germen prison camp.
Then World War II ended and he was released.
But after the war, the Russians installed a communist government in Poland.
Witold remained loyal to the Polish government that had been exiled.
And for that, the communists tortured and killed him.
There haven't been as many people on Earth who were as brave as Witold Pilecki, and that makes him a poster worthy person.
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