The Man Who Infiltrated Auschwitz

Added: 2026-06-11

[00:00:03]The Nazis are combing through Warsaw.

[00:00:09]Behind the door, the man doesn't move.

[00:00:12]He knows exactly what's happening.

[00:00:15]This is a roundup, part of Hitler's plan to destroy Poland by annihilating its professional class. Lawyers, writers, doctors, teachers, Jewish Poles, Catholic Poles. They're seized from the streets, from their homes. Thousands of them. Many will be sent to concentration camps. The others will simply be shot.

[00:00:40]But he has a plan.

[00:00:43]Unlike the thousands of others, he wants to get caught.

[00:00:52]>> Out. Out.

[00:00:55]He's a member of an underground resistance movement. He knows he'll probably be in turned and sent to a recently opened concentration camp outside a Polish town called Oshvincim.

[00:01:06]He's adopted a false identity, Tomas Zerafinsky. And his mission is clear.

[00:01:13]Enter the camp, form a resistance, and send reports of Nazi crimes.

[00:01:19]Now, he can't know that he'll succeed, that he will build a secret network, that he'll smuggle out multiple reports on the murderous labor, the starvation rations, the rising death toll, that he'll watch as the camp expands from labor to death camp, and that the allies, despite his please, will do nothing.

[00:01:42]This is the story of Vtold Pilotski, the man who infiltrated Ashvitz.

[00:02:14]This video is largely based on both Pilk's report and the volunteer by Jack Farweather. You'll find links in the description. We'd also like to thank Batwoman Capita at the Pilky Institute government and Brussels says that Allied troops are moving to their support. The German army invaded Holland and Belgium early this morning by land and by landing.

[00:02:42]>> It's a crucial moment. Either the Allies will defeat the Germans or the war will stretch on. Poland's fate hangs in the balance. The reports are terrible. At Dunkirk, the British are routed. Then Paris falls. The news is devastating.

[00:03:00]The war will continue.

[00:03:03]It's only been 8 months, but already Poland has been grimly transformed.

[00:03:11]Germany invaded on September 1st, 1939.

[00:03:14]Some 1 and a2 million German troops and more than 2,000 tanks stormed the country. The Blitzkrie, the Luftwafer bombed cities and airfields. The Poles fought back but were eventually overpowered.

[00:03:30]Vtold, a 38-year-old second left tenant in the calvaryary reserves, was in the thick of it. His men were mowed down by German tanks in early September. He only narrowly escaped with his life. His beloved Arabian mayor Fairy Tale wasn't so lucky. It was over in minutes. Most of his men injured, captured, or dead.

[00:03:53]Vold heads for Warsaw. If the capital falls, all will be lost. The retreat of the Poles was plagued by German planes, bombs, bullets. They killed indiscriminately, soldiers and civilians alike. Hitler's orders.

[00:04:10]When Vtold arrived in Warsaw on September 6th, he found a city in chaos.

[00:04:16]The Polish government had fled.

[00:04:19]Vold left, too. He planned to regroup with troops in the east, but each rallying point was bombed before he arrived. On September 9th, Vold and his men headed towards Vauov. On September 13 in Vava, it was the same story, but here he met an old military colleague, Major Yan Vakivich.

[00:04:41]Both men had collected stragglers along the way, a full company's worth. As other members of the military command left the country, Vold and Yan decided to stay and make a stand. But the fight didn't last long.

[00:04:59]On September 17, the Soviet Union joined in the fry. Back in August, they had signed a non-aggression pack with Germany, splitting Poland between them.

[00:05:08]On September 28, Warsaw surrendered.

[00:05:12]For Poland, the war was over. The country was occupied yet again.

[00:05:18]>> The occupation is hell. Germany has imposed a racial hierarchy. Master race, Germans.

[00:05:26]Below them, former Polish citizens who could prove German ancestry. Then laborers, ethnic Poles treated as slaves facing everyday terror. And finally, Jews, portrayed by the Nazis as subhuman, parasitic, and evil, determined to destroy the German race, brutally persecuted, and destined for total extermination.

[00:05:49]With the occupation of Poland, some 3 million Jewish people came under Nazi control. Thousands of Jews have been concentrated in ghettos in the cities.

[00:05:59]They must wear a star of David. Their property was confiscated. Thousands are already dead.

[00:06:08]After Poland's surrender, Yan and Vtold returned to Warsaw and talked strategy.

[00:06:14]They would form an underground resistance. Yan as leader, Vtold as chief recruiter. Their name is Tina Armia Pulska, the secret Polish Army.

[00:06:26]They share information about German operations, spy on Polish informants, stockpile weapons, and they wait, hoping for an opportunity to rise up and revolt.

[00:06:37]But those hopes were just dashed. The Nazis won at Dunkirk and occupied Paris.

[00:06:44]In Poland, conditions worsen.

[00:06:49]Vtold almost gets caught in a raid.

[00:06:51]Afterwards, he adopts his alias, Tomas Zerafinsky. Others, like Vold's colleague, Wadiswa Daring, are seized by the SS. Wadiswaf Sumatsky, the underground's chief of staff, meets the same fate. Yan calls an emergency meeting. They're not sure where Sumatsky and Daring have been taken, but they have a guess.

[00:07:13]Reports have emerged that the SS have just opened a new concentration camp outside the small town of Avienshim, which the Nazis call Avitz.

[00:07:24]The underground knows little about it, but it seems brutal. And as long as the camp remains shrouded in secrecy, the underground leadership believes that the Germans can get away with anything there.

[00:07:39]A great honor has befallen you. Yan tells Vital. They need someone to infiltrate the camp, send reports, and possibly organize an uprising.

[00:07:51]A great honor.

[00:07:54]Vold has a wife, Maria, and two children, Andre and Zopia. If he goes, he may never see them again. From the mysterious camp, the SS sends many death notices to the families of deceased inmates, sometimes along with their blood splattered belongings.

[00:08:12]Vold cannot be ordered to go. He has to make a choice. And after a few days, he does.

[00:08:22]He volunteers.

[00:08:34]The train stops and the horror begins.

[00:08:41]Rose, >> chaos, confusion. Vold manages to avoid the blows.

[00:08:48]>> He follows the order, joining a row of five. Another man follows orders too. He is told to run to the side of the road.

[00:08:58]It's a lesson. If one man tries to escape, everyone gets punished.

[00:09:06]Abite mry. Work sets you free.

[00:09:12]Soon enough, they'll learn what this truly means. For now, though, there's a moment of pause. Everyone is counted, even the corpses.

[00:09:22]Then the nightmare continues.

[00:09:25]At first, Vtor thinks this is an insane asylum. But then this one of the lunatics grabs a man. He demands his profession. A judge, the man responds.

[00:09:37]Wrong answer.

[00:09:39]These men aren't lunatics. They are pole killing machines, or as VTOL will learn to call them, capos. And their first targets are the intelligencia, judges, priests, lawyers. Only workers and craftsmen are spared.

[00:09:57]This is Awitz concentration camp, my dear sir.

[00:10:03]In groups of 100, the men are sent to the bath. There, a grim announcement.

[00:10:09]None of you should hope to get out of this place alive. The rations are calculated for you to survive for 6 weeks. If you live longer, it means you steal. And if you steal, you will be put in the penal company where you won't stay alive for long.

[00:10:23]>> Then each is transformed from person to prisoner, stripped, shaved. Vtor's transformation is almost complete. But first, he hadn't broken a rule. The bathkeeper had arbitrarily decided he wanted prisoners to hold their registration numbers in their mouths. It was a sort of brutal baptism. From now on, Vtold will have no name, only a number. 4859.

[00:10:54]Two3s. Double unlucky. His comrades believe it's an evil omen. A sign that he'll die. But Vtold is happy to have them. Above his prisoner number, each man also gets a winker. There are five colors. criminals, people who refuse to work, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and people like Vtold, political offenders.

[00:11:20]The Vinkles may differ, but for everyone, the days are the same.

[00:11:25]A day in Avitz looks like this. 5:20 a.m. Up quick, fold blanket, mattress to the side of the room, dress quick, quick. Any delay? They call the block elder bloody Aloise for a reason. He will beat you ruthlessly.

[00:11:40]Single-handedly, he killed several people per day. Quick to the latrines.

[00:11:45]You have 5 seconds. Any delay, more beating. Quick, bathe. There's no way to wash properly. But getting water is a matter of life and death. At night, the soles of your feet must be clean. If they're not, ruthless beating. 5:45 a.m.

[00:12:02]Roll call. By 6:00 a.m., everyone must be present. If you are absent, you will be found and publicly killed. Then the formation of work units. Here work often equals death. Vold doesn't know this yet, but he got lucky. He was selected as a stupend, a room supervisor, and is allowed to remain on the block. The less fortunate work until 11:20 a.m. 11:30 roll call. 12 to 1 lunch. Then more work until evening roll call.

[00:12:39]VTOL's role is to clean the block when the others leave and to impose order. If anyone misbehaves, moves slowly, or steps out of line, he should beat them.

[00:12:51]Vtor keeps the block clean and orderly, but bloody Aloise does not like his methods. For his lack of brutality, Vtor is punished and gets banished from the block.

[00:13:02]Today he'll work.

[00:13:06]He has no idea which work unit to join and ends up in the gravel pit. The gravel is for the expansion of the crematorium. Vtold is strong and moves with caution. Rest means a beating and falling death, but the misfortune of others is also your salvation. Waiting while a fallen comrade is beaten is the only rest you'll get. for 3 days. This is Vital's life. A backbreaking balancing act. No breaks, little water, starvation rations.

[00:13:40]Right when Vold thinks he won't be able to survive another day, bloody Aloise allows him back on the block. Now you know what work at the Laga means. He says there's only one benefit Vtor can see to these horrendous conditions. They might unite the prisoners. And unity is exactly what his mission requires.

[00:14:13]At that time, my main goal was to establish a military organization in order to one, build up inmates spirit by distributing and circulating news from the outside. Two, provide as much as possible additional food and distribute undergarments among the members. Three, pass on information on what was going on in the camp to the outside world. And most importantly, four, prepare the Zhaozone troops to seize control of the camp at an opportune moment following an airdrop of weapons or troops landing in the area.

[00:14:43]To accomplish any of this, Vold will need help. First, he finds Wadisworth daring. He is pale, sickly, but alive, working as a nurse on the hospital ward.

[00:14:54]From Daring, Vtold learns that Wadiswafsumatski is also still alive, working in the construction office. He's helped with building projects around the camp.

[00:15:05]In Avitz, there are countless ways to die. A brutal beating, a bullet to the head. But one killer is deadlier than the rest. Hunger.

[00:15:17]Later, the SS devised a survival time formula. Life expectancy in months equals 5,000 divided by the deficit of calories. Daily Russians are 1,800 calories. Calories needed to sustain hard labor are 2,700, 900 calories short. 5,000 divided by 900 equals 5 1/2 months.

[00:15:40]In reality, the prisoner's daily caloric intake was even lower. Each day is a deficit leading toward death. Managing calories will require cooperation and that means recruitment.

[00:15:54]VTOL trusts Daring and Sumatsky. They are first then three more forming a command group of six. After that it's a delicate and dangerous endeavor recruiting strangers.

[00:16:07]Who to trust?

[00:16:09]These men are patiently waiting to betray their fellow prisoners. The SS will pay them for their service with a scrap of bread. Not everyone stoops their law, but hunger corrods their soul. Anyone could break. So Vito watches for acts of altruism. He selects for selflessness.

[00:16:30]The network grows and its effects begin to be felt. Room supervisors are instructed to serve the weakest first, and recruits aren't to ask for seconds, ensuring equal Russians for all.

[00:16:41]Meanwhile, Sumatskis made an important connection. The Stupkas, a family living near the train station close to the camp. They are willing to help.

[00:16:52]The mother Helena distracts the guards.

[00:16:55]Sumatsky and his team of surveyors use the family's toilet where food and medicine has been stashed for them.

[00:17:01]Helena also shares information. England has not fallen. The news is good for Vito told doubly so. If information can be smuggled into the camp, perhaps it can also be smuggled out.

[00:17:18]This is an extraordinary story from one of the darkest periods of human history.

[00:17:22]We work hard to tell it well. This is Thomas, one of our self-taught art directors and animators. I learned Blender during co when there wasn't anything else to do, watching tutorials and trying to figure things out on my own. Over time, I built up my skills.

[00:17:37]But it would have been so much easier if someone who already knew it was sitting right next to me answering questions and helping when I got stuck. The best way to learn something hard like coding or math is from someone who already knows it, a personal tutor, which hasn't been an option for everyone until now. Meet the new brilliant. They've just launched a personal tutor called Cooji who's right there with you as you learn coding and math. He answers any question, breaks down hard problems, and even draws right on your screen. Since Blender runs on Python, I've been learning how to code with Cooji to boost my workflows, and it's been really helpful. He never just gives you the answer. Instead, he guides you to your own aha moment. I've been using Brilliant for a long time, and this is such a nice upgrade. Scan this QR code to get started with Brilliant Tutor for free. Right now, our viewers get 20% off an annual subscription at brilliant.org/farn.

[00:18:30]Link below.

[00:18:33]>> Noon. Roll call. VTOL's 37th. By now, the resistant network has grown. They've supported each other as best they can.

[00:18:42]Here in the courtyard, though, there's nothing they can do. A prisoner is missing. No one is allowed to move until he's found.

[00:18:52]First, the temperature falls. Then, darkness falls. Then, the bodies.

[00:18:59]The timing could hardly be worse. Vtold has finally found someone to smuggle a message out of the camp. Now the plan is at risk. You can't smuggle anything if you die of pneumonia. And as the prisoners drop, death seems more and more likely. Not that VTOL believes his message will change their fate. For his request is not for assistance. It's for annihilation.

[00:19:24]Alexander Vilopolski has memorized the urgent and well-thought request sent on behalf of comrades by the witness of their torment. Bombed a camp.

[00:19:35]How many have already died here? At first the number remained a grim mystery. Then Vold cracked it. The truth lies in the registration numbers. They correspond to the order of arrival and the newcomers have numbers in the 6,000s. At roll call though, there are only about 5,000 men. A thousand men dead in a month. Death seems inevitable.

[00:20:00]If the allies bomb the camp, some prisoners might escape in confusion.

[00:20:05]Even if they all die, it will not be in vain. As long as Avitz is destroyed.

[00:20:11]Vold and his comrades must get their message to Warsaw. Helena Stupka couldn't help. She had no connections.

[00:20:18]Couldn't travel.

[00:20:20]But there's another way. In these early days in Avitz, it's still possible for a prisoner's family to buy his freedom.

[00:20:28]And finally, it happened. A 31-year-old was scheduled to be released, Alexander Vopolski.

[00:20:36]But smuggling a written report is far too dangerous. Alex had to memorize the message.

[00:20:44]From noon to 9, they stand waiting.

[00:20:48]Finally, the missing prisoner is found.

[00:20:51]Dead beside a pile of logs. By morning, another 86 are dead. More succumb to pneumonia in the coming days. One of Vital's closest allies among them, but the plan remains intact. Alexander survives. He carries the message out beyond the barbed wire fences and is gone. For those left behind, it seems certain death will come. The only question is in what form.

[00:21:20]October becomes November. November, December. But no bombs fall.

[00:21:28]Meanwhile, Vital's message is on the move. From Warsaw to Switzerland, through France to Spain, and from there to London. The underground finds a way.

[00:21:38]The prisoners beg the Polish government for the love of God to bombard these warehouses. Should they die in the attack, it would be a relief given the conditions.

[00:21:47]>> In January 1941, the bombing request reaches the Air Ministry in London, but over the course of its transmission, it's been shortened. The nightmarish camp conditions are only briefly mentioned. In the end, the chief of the air staff is curt and decisive. An attack on the camp would be an undesirable diversion and unlikely to achieve its purpose.

[00:22:12]Back in Ashwitz, Vold fell ill. The labor, the lack of food, the relentless misery, it's finally caught up to him.

[00:22:22]Now he's here in the hospital ward. But in Avitz, this is not a place where people recover.

[00:22:28]Vold has come to understand the meaning of the sign at the entrance. Abra work sets you free. It grants the freedom of death. a corpse's escape through the crerematorium.

[00:22:43]If the fever doesn't kill him, the lies surely will. He kills as many as he can.

[00:22:50]A futile task.

[00:22:54]Luckily, the resistance network saves him. He manages to get a note to Daring, and Daring sneaks him to a different room with an uninfested bed. There, Vtold fights his fever. Waking, sleeping. Waking, sleeping. Waking, sleeping, waking, sleeping.

[00:23:20]February is almost over and Vold has nearly regained his health. Without daring, he almost certainly would have died. Meanwhile, the resistance is growing. By March, there are several hundred members with connections all across the camp. The camp itself is also growing. This is part of a major expansion from holding 10,000 prisoners to 30,000.

[00:23:45]This means job openings and opportunities for VTOL's men to fill them. One recruit gets a capo job.

[00:23:53]Another manages the stables. The underground is gaining a bit more control. It can offer a little protection, a little extra food, but these are merely means of delaying the inevitable.

[00:24:05]Since its opening, Avitz has admitted over 15,000 prisoners. Not even a full year has passed, and only 8 12,000 remain. 6,000 men dead. This number seems monstrous. Vold doesn't know it yet, but it's about to get exponentially worse.

[00:24:29]This is the largest army the world has ever seen. Over 3 million men from the Axis powers, 600,000 tanks and other motorized vehicles. The 1,000mi front.

[00:24:41]It's June 22, 1941, and Germany is invading the Soviet Union. The Red Army falls in a flesh. The prisoners of war are put in pants like animals. Each week a new batch, hundreds of thousands of them.

[00:25:00]Soon enough, they begin to arrive in Avitz. At first, a few hundred, then a few hundred more. Disposing of them is messy at first, inefficient, but the Germans honed their technique. In November, Vtold witnesses it.

[00:25:16]>> I counted 800s. The building these prisoners were entering was the crematorium. Maybe he thinks they'll be given underwear, clothing. But why there?

[00:25:28]>> One can remain naive till one's last breath.

[00:25:32]>> Suclon B, a cyanide based delousing agent. Upon contact with the air, the pellets turn into a toxic gas.

[00:25:41]This is Avitz's first gas chamber with industrial scale killing capacity.

[00:25:50]Later on, I found out that there was over a thousand of them in total. By now, there are nearly as many Soviet prisoners as Polish ones in the camp.

[00:25:59]They've been put to work constructing a new camp, Beer Cano. It will accommodate another 100,000 prisoners.

[00:26:09]Over the course of the winter months, 11,400 Soviets are killed.

[00:26:14]>> There was a constant outflow of prisoners through the chimney of the crematorium.

[00:26:19]This may be by far the most common way out of the camp, but we told nose. There are others.

[00:26:31]Alexander Vilopolski wasn't the only prisoner to leave the camp his freedom purchased. More than 300 others have left this way. Some of them carried reports from the underground. Caro Sutorki, a report on death figures and camp conditions. Federinansiki a report on death figures and beer canal even Vladislaf Zumatski he carried a similar report Vold stays he knows his wife Maria might try to buy his freedom he may have explicitly requested that she not we don't know for sure Ashwitz he believes is the centerpiece of the Nazis plans for domination and he continues to believe the allies will intervene he wants to be here when they do that can't be said for everyone. Some try to escape.

[00:27:22]Usually that looks like this, impulsive and pointless unless the point is death.

[00:27:29]Often it is. In Ashwitz, there's a slang phrase for suicide, to go for the wires.

[00:27:37]But some escapes are audaciously planned and successful.

[00:27:43]This is a 220. The Camp Commandan's car.

[00:27:47]Six cylinders, 2.3 L. And this is Organosh, the mechanic. He dreams of stealing it. If he could get out the gate, no vehicle would be fast enough to catch him. There's only one problem. The checkpoint.

[00:28:04]He'd need to look the part. He'd need to sound it, too. This is where his friend Kazzy comes in. He's fluent in German, and he knows where the spare uniforms are kept. A plan takes shape. VTO thinks that maybe, just maybe, it's crazy enough to work. He has Stanislav Yastaster join him with another memorized message. A monk named Ysef Lampard rounds out the group.

[00:28:31]June 20th, a Saturday. They spring into action, slip away from work, break into the store room, pile in the car.

[00:28:41]Now they're here. Yaster whispers to Kazik, "Do something.

[00:28:48]>> Open up."

[00:28:52]It works. The guards open the gate. The deputy commandant passes on his horse.

[00:28:58]The SKP salute him. He salutes back.

[00:29:02]Then they drive through the gate.

[00:29:05]Freedom.

[00:29:07]It's like something out of a movie.

[00:29:11]But the report they carry out of the camp could not be more serious.

[00:29:15]>> I wonder what the SS men were thinking.

[00:29:18]There were many women and children in these carriages. Sometimes babies in their cradles. Here they were to end their lives altogether. Like a herd of animals led for slaughter.

[00:29:29]VTOL does not know its name, but this is the final solution.

[00:29:35]They arrive by the thousand. By the thousand, they are gassed and burned.

[00:29:40]It is 1942, the year Awitz Beer Canal becomes a central site for the systemic mass murder of Jewish people. The mass gassings began in May. The resistance watches as more and more and more people are brought here to be killed. There are two options. Do nothing or resist. And finally, they decide to resist.

[00:30:07]A plan for an uprising has already been outlined in the evening before roll call. Work units returning. It's a moment of flux. If they strike, then maybe one group can overpower the gods here and here. While another group sees weapons here, armed, they might stand a chance. By now, the underground boasts about 1,000 men with a vast network of connections.

[00:30:30]But we told still fears the worst.

[00:30:33]Without external support, the prisoners will very likely be slaughtered. But support still has not come. Despite his many messages, more and more, it seems the prisoners must rise up alone.

[00:30:50]Vital's fears have come true. The uprising did not go well. All because of a misunderstanding.

[00:30:58]The uprising had been planned for 6:00 p.m. on June 10th, the end of the workday. But that day, at 4:30 p.m., a whistle blew.

[00:31:09]A break. Or was this it? The time to strike. Some acted, others didn't. Only two prisoners managed to escape. Those left behind are punished. Vold survives, but morale plummets.

[00:31:29]1942 becomes 1943. Vtorld's messages have reached Warsaw. He described the horror in all its detail. Phenol, that was the new instrument of murder. On average, a thousand people were burned every day. Young boys aged 10 to 14 or 15 were picked from these transports.

[00:31:48]The SSmen would rifle through suitcases and wallets looking for gold, money, and diamonds. The camp authorities had them all murdered with phenol injections.

[00:31:57]But liberating Awitz would be extremely difficult. Would there be enough Polish underground fighters to overwhelm the SS? Would the Allies support the attack with air strikes in Warsaw? Few see any chance of success. Vold is still determined. Maybe if he delivers a report himself, he can persuade the resistance movement to intervene. To do that though, he has to get out.

[00:32:23]But how?

[00:32:31]Civilian clothing, money, knife. They need all this once they make it out. If they make it out. Apples, honey, jam, sugar for bribes, cured tobacco to throw the dogs off their scent. And if they're caught, cyanide capsules. Vold collects it all. The plan is to escape from here, the bakery. It only has two guards, but that doesn't mean it's easy to leave.

[00:32:59]This is Yani. He works on the baker squad and cases the premises. The windows are board. There's a single entrance. It's locked and double bolted.

[00:33:09]There's also this ledge, always fastened by the departing shift. Vold and Yan might be able to steal a door key. But what about the ledge? Then Yan has an idea. The bolt is attached with a nut from inside the door. Maybe they could unscrew it somehow. In the end, their plan's crucial ingredient is bread.

[00:33:31]Jan uses a piece of dough to make an imprint. He does the same with the key.

[00:33:37]Vold has a wrench made to fit the nut.

[00:33:39]He has a key made, too. Yan tests it.

[00:33:44]It works.

[00:33:46]The bakery squad walks out of Awitz's front under the abite mry sign. Vold and Yan are among them. Also, Addict, a 19-year-old who' helped Vold and been invited to escape. Bribes got them here.

[00:33:59]For the Kapo to convince them to let Edict and Vold work on the bakery squad.

[00:34:03]For the bakers who let Edict and Vto take their shifts. They won't get this shift again. They have one shot. Tonight or never.

[00:34:15]Darkness has fallen. They'd planned to be gone by now. But there's a problem.

[00:34:21]It's raining and an offduty SS officer and his girlfriend are sheltering beneath the eaves of the bakery. An hour passes. Two. The odds of escape diminish with each passing minute.

[00:34:34]Finally, the rain stops and the lovers leave. There's no time to lose. There's a plausible excuse to enter the storage room. They need more fuel. Edec pushes a wheelbarrow for coal. VTOL starts chopping wood. He makes as much noise as possible to cover for the sounds of Yan dealing with the door. First, Yan twists off the nut. Now the bolts. Suddenly, an SS officer pokes his head through the door. He looks at Vital and Edic. They freeze. Busted.

[00:35:07]Maybe. He walks across the room toward the bakery entrance. Luckily, Yan made it to the toilet. The SS officer is suspicious, but not very observant.

[00:35:21]He walks away.

[00:35:24]The plan is still on.

[00:35:27]Addict uses a knife to cut the phone wires. If they get out, they don't want the SS calling for backup. Volde addict grabbed their civilian clothes. Yan has already changed into his. Now there's one last step. But the lock doesn't budge. Jan tries again, fails. There's no time to waste and they're so close.

[00:35:48]Jan pushes against the door. Vtor joins him. The door bends but stays closed.

[00:35:53]Another great heath. And they are out.

[00:36:01]The stars are shining in the sky. Jan sprints ahead toward the river. Vold follows addict beside him. Shots ring out behind them. They don't look back.

[00:36:12]Across a bridge, along the river, they run and run. Ahead, cover. They're almost there, but now they have to walk.

[00:36:22]Slowly, they can't attract attention.

[00:36:25]Finally, they make it to the forest and vanish into the trees.

[00:36:33]What a contrast with the camp in which I felt I had spent a thousand years. A silence far from the roar of humanity, far from man's scheming. A silence in which there was not a living soul. We were enchanted by everything. We were in love with the world, just not with its people.

[00:36:53]Vto is finally free.

[00:37:06]The execution is quick. a bullet to the back of the head. In the 5 years since his escape, Vtold has remained loyal to Poland.

[00:37:16]The country is now under Soviet control.

[00:37:19]Vold sent information about the occupation to the Polish government in exile. He lived under various aliases.

[00:37:27]He changed jobs regularly, but at least he was reunited with his family.

[00:37:33]Eventually, the communists caught him.

[00:37:36]The list of alleged crimes is long.

[00:37:39]Forged documents, illegal firearms, espionage for foreign imperialism.

[00:37:45]Brutal interrogations followed. A show trial. And now this. The Polish communist authorities tried to kill his story, too.

[00:37:55]They had executed a man who most Poles would consider a hero. A fact they tried to consign to the ash heap of history.

[00:38:03]And they almost succeeded. His story was hidden for decades. After his escape, Vtold wrote a comprehensive report chronicling the horrors of Avitz. It wasn't published until 1991.

[00:38:17]More than 40 years after his execution, he was rehabilitated.

[00:38:22]Later, he was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest military honor. His grave has never been found.