Located in Wrocław's Old Town Promenade near Plac Wolności, this unique monument in the shape of an enormous ring honours Witold Pilecki (1901-1948) - a man of great integrity with quite an incredible biography (which the monument describes briefly on a bilingual plaque). A Polish calvary officer, Pilecki fought in the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 and the Second World War in 1939; he then was instrumental in the underground Home Army throughout the rest of the war, making himself famous for infiltrating Auschwitz concentration camp as a volunteer prisoner, then escaping to report on the Jewish genocide to the Allied powers, who subsequently ignored the gravity of his reports. Fighting in the Warsaw Uprising and then the Polish II Corps in Italy, he was captured by communist authorities upon returning to Poland in 1947 and executed. His place of burial remains unknown.
Witold Pilecki monument, with the Wrocław Opera House in the background.
Symbolic of Pilecki's faithfulness to the Polish nation and commitment to its freedom, the inside of this giant wedding band-shaped monument is engraved with his name and a quote from a letter he once wrote: "For even if I were to lose my life, I prefer it to living with a wounded heart."
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