(BBC) – Auschwitz was established in 1940 when Nazi Germany opened a new camp complex in Oświęcim in southern Poland to hold prisoners. What began as a political prison of Polish nationals evolved into a death factory of Europe’s Jews, and the name Auschwitz would soon become synonymous with genocide and the Holocaust. During its first year of operation, little was known about the camp’s activities, until one man decided to risk his life to find out.

To the guards and other prisoners, this man was Tomasz Serafiński, prisoner number 4859, a dissident who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But to a small group of an underground resistance group against Nazi Germany, his name was Witold Pilecki, second lieutenant in the army, an intelligence agent, a husband and father to two children and a Catholic. (Read More)