Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jack Fairweather The Volunteer 20240712

Saturday september 26 on booktv. Welcome to into h lincoln the Online Public program surgeries, a living memorial to the holocaust. My name at samantha shokin, manager of programs and today will be exploring the story of Witold Pilecki, the polish resistance leader who is a subject of the new book the auschwitz volunteer beyond bravery. Out now with harpercollins. We are joined today by author Jack Fairweather a former one report in iraq and afghanistan and the office of a war of choice and the good worker he has served as the Daily Telegraph Baghdad Bureau chief and is a video journalist for the Washington Post in afghanistan. Interviewing jack today is Robert Robert jan van pelt. From 199798 he presided over the team that developed a master plan to preserve visit auschwid participate as an Expert Witness in the famous case against the British Historic author david irving, holocaust tonight. Robert has published widely, serve as a struggle advisor and cultured the Evidence Room which was exhibited in 2016. Before we get started i want to make a few quick housekeeping notes. We will have time about 15 minutes or so for audience q a at the end of this program. So make sure to hold your question for the and if you cant and will try to do her best to get to as many as possible. And please note that this program is being recorded and will be available on our Youtube Channel within the next few days or so, and i will followup with with all of the registered todays program with an email probably tomorrow with a link to jacks book for purchase and a link to the video recording of todays program. So that is it from me, and so without further do i will turn it over to jack and robert. So my name is Robert Jan Van pelt and i will be interviewing jack today, but he is going to go first to give a presentation. I think what is it, ten, 15 minutes . Basically presenting some of the core ideas and themes of the book and so i think it would be probably best jack, if you come once youre done preconcert talk about what you just said. So its all yours. Great. Thank you samantha so much into the museum of jewish heritage. It sort of great to have this opportunity to share the story of a truly remarkable man. And i think in some ways the best way to begin telling you about who Witold Pilecki was his with as seen in some ways defined so much of the man and his legacy. Im going to do that by taking on a tour, a brief tour through his life. So let me start by sharing my screen. I hope you can see that. There we go. Super. So id like you all to begin picturing a scene with me. It sometime or 19th, 1940 just after dawn and the polish underground operative named Witold Pilecki is sitting in the district of warsaw and i would like to show you the very that the Apartment Building he was sitting in on the third floor and here is him and his favorite jacket sitting to the left of this in this photograph. Pilecki is 38, a reserve officer in the polish cavalry, a farmer. A devout catholic, father of two. Heres a couple of images of his kids in fancy dress. His wife is a local schoolteacher, and the two of them. He and his wife on her wedding day, one of my favorite images. Before the war poland had been one of the most pluralistic societies in europe. Onetenth of the population is jewish. That was the scene of course for when hitlers forces invaded poland. It was a short campaign. [background sounds] [inaudible] his plans to extremity europes jews. Instead he was intent on the destruction of poland by eliminating its professional classes, its intellectuals. That meant rounding up lawyers, doctors, journalists, writers, even the countries top chessplayer. Heres some images from the western city from october 1939 showing a typical roundup and just to emphasize at this point the germans were arresting catholics and jews alike. It was sort of an indiscriminate roundup in many respects. Over 50,000 polish nationals were killed in the first few months of the german occupation, absolutely staggering figure. The following year in may 1940 germans begin a new concentration camp in the south of the country. I cant they called auschwitz. A camp. Here we see a prewarmup of poland. Witold kempen is part of the country and then the southern errol points to the town which the germans called auschwitz. Little was known about what was happening inside that camp but pilecki learned from informants that there was a roundup for warsaw that very morning in the district. In fact, that was why he was there, because his nation for the underground was to infiltrate the camp and gather evidence of nazi crimes they are. Lets go back to the apartment. Now imagine the sound of trucks pulling up outside, shouts and gun gunshots following. Theres a knock on door. Its building caretaker. He said get out while you still can. Pilecki doesnt. His mission is to remain. It is his sister in laws apartment and hes in the room with his nephew, threeyearold boy called merrick. Pilecki notices the boys teddy bear has fallen on the ground just as there are sounds of footsteps on the stairwell outside and the door burst open. Pilecki reaches down, except that teddy bear and hands it to the boy, seeing that he was scared and needs to reassuring. In an instinct he must that, pilecki turned towards the german soldiers were in the apartment and steps into captivity. Three days later he arrived in auschwitz. There is a gate to the camp. The terrible words we all know. And here is pilecki not as a prisoner. Over the next two and a half years trying to forge an underground army in auschwitz that sabotage facilities, assassinated ss officers and plotted an armed uprising. He was arriving in auschwitz at the beginning as a concentration camp for polish nationals, thus he witnessed the steps by which the nazis conceived of the final solution for europes jews. He was the first person to seek to warn the world about the horrors of the camp, and he was the first to try and stop them. Three years before out lied commanders publicly acknowledged auschwitz is a role, pilecki was already calling on them to secret messages smuggled out of the camp to destroy auschwitz. And yet for all of his exploits in auschwitz, his story is almost unknown. Indeed i only heard of it by chance. I met up with a were reported friend of mine in 2011, and we would talk about our experiences in war zones and make sense of our experiences, and my friend had just come back from a trip to auschwitz and learned about a resistance cell in the camp. I think like a lot of you here today, the idea that resistance was possible in auschwitz was just so startling and surprising to me. I i knew i had to find out more. And i you or so later there were reports of pilecki were finally translated into english. It was the most remarkable documents describing in great detail this emergency his experience in the camp. It also left unanswered many of the questions that pilecki himself couldnt have known the answer to, such as what happened toward the intelligence that he smuggled into the camp to all why was it that the allies did not respond to his desperate pleas for action against auschwitz wrecks so its like t of pause and i will show you where pileckis writings were housed for many decades after the war in that small west london house, the polish underground study trust. One of the great mysteries about auschwitzs story was revealed to me as i begin to dig into it, which is why have we not heard about this man before, and the answer is that after the war, poland was taken over by sovietbacked communist, and pilecki fought on against them just as much as he fought against the nazis in auschwitz and afterwards. He was captured by the communists, executed, and all traits of his wartime record hidden away. A single report of his was smuggled to london at the end of the war, and it was housed in this archive it wasnt publicized for decades for fear of sparking a rest back home. Because and pretty much anyone in the polish underground was persecuted by the communists after the war as possible resistors. It took decades for his story to emerge in poland, and here is a copy of that report that was sort of kept under wraps all those years. You can see the handwriting around the edge. This is the cabin at the polish underground study trust with that report still sits today. That second shelf from the top you can see a beige folder sitting perpendicular to the shelves and that is the report. Im always a little bit amazed to see it there because, in my mind possibly being in the National Archives in wassail or even but nope, thats without remarkable document telling the story of pileckis experience in the camp is housed. I think from the chat many people who dont seem to be able to see the pictures, so i dont really know what happened. I can see it but oh, okay. I can just try and may be we can have another go at reloading it. It would be a a shame if you ct see these images. Maybe if i just lets try this. Is that any better . Robert, can use that . This seems to be better. Im guessing some people are saying that we can see, yes, perfect. Im able to see them just fine. Okay. Im so sorry for the inconvenience. Here is a filing cabinet with that report has sat. So having acquainted myself with reports, having seen that sort of historical mystery contained in it, those questions about what happens with intelligence that the gathered at a a think also the sort of personal challenge that i felt from pileckis story, trying to understand what would make pilecki risk everything for such condition. I also had a wife and two kids when i begin research, like pilecki and and i really wanteo understand what would drive someone to risk everything on such a mission. With those questions i went off begin gathering material. Also in 2016, the first person i wanted to meet was andre im sorry again. Many people cant see you. You cant see anything . All right. I think you just ended the screen or turn off your powerpoint . Area, i see you but not your powerpoint. Okay, im going to try again. Yeah, there it is. Okay. That looks good. So i flew to warsaw in 2016 to meet remarkably pileckis son. I was a bit nervous about meeting him because he had just been a child when his father was executed, and decades even told his dad was enemy of the state and was, id iron curtain he was able to put details to get about his father submission and so here was i suddenly, who was i to write the mans biography . But it should that we worry about meeting him because he was the most delightful chat i could hope to move. Here he is in his warsaw apartment. Chap. He was engaged, compassionate and curious because he said to me, jack, im not sure what youre going to find out about my dad or where you should start looking, so i looked at andrzej and i said im starting with you because were in so little is known about your dad and his thinking, anything that you can tell me is going to give me an insight. I write in a style called narrative nonfiction which means well it reads like a novel, everything in the pages of the book has to be true. That means that insights that andrzej could give me into pileckis ranking would be helpful for me to write about what drove pileckis directions in the camp. One of the things that really stunned me upon arriving in warsaw was discovering just how many people were still alive who had known pilecki or in some cases even fought alongside him. And even better is when i got to meet these gentlemen and women, and taken to the places where pilecki had performed some of his deeds and one of the key places i wanted to go to was that apartment where pilecki volunteered for his mission. Here it is, this was a few days after meeting andrzej on the third floor we found the door and we knocked so we could see inside this historic space and no one answered so my researcher suggested as we do in what we might as a record some audio mg up steps and banged on the door like the gestapo had done, which was a good job we did it because thats what it took to wait a rather sleepy inhabitants inside. It was a student, even though his midday they were still fast asleep and completely unaware that this apartment was the scene of a truly historic moment in history. Thats the room in which pilecki volunteered for submission to auschwitz from. We seem to have the same problem. People cant see it, or maybe i should stop intervening. I dont really know what to do about it. Its hard to comment on whether, how many come whether its a localized issue or whether anyone is philly. Billy. I think at this point i am nearing the end so i think we should probably just go ahead i can see it but i think i am one of the few ones. In the case i will just go on describing the images so affluent can get a sense for those who cant see it. The apartment, picture in your mind now the very untidy student apartment. One of the things i wanted to do was bring someone who would been in that apartment back of their and you may remember that child who tried to it comforted just moments before he was arrested. Here he is, merrick, sitting on pileckis knee in 1939. While it turned out merrick was still alive, here is when i met him in warsaw looking very dapper on the banks of the river. I took it back to the apartment and showed him around. It was the first time merrick had been back since before the war and returning their push them to remember all sorts the details concerning the layout of the different bits of furniture in the room. He also spoke about the moment that pilecki was arrested. [inaudible] they asked mother are there any men, is there any men . In the same moment im told move from this room. Whats going on . Usury to go. Yet his jacket on . I think he was prepared because he has time to what did he say to you when he was leaving . Did he say anything, do you remember . So thats the video of marek describing looking around the apartment showing the moment when the germans burst in and the video shows him tearing up just a little bit at the end. By the end of that visit he was in tears remembering pileckis engagement with his family. So that was part of my approach to telling this story. I wanted to follow in pileckis footstep as much as possible, find those who erdogan, take into the places i had seen him in action. But i knew i was going to need hundreds of thousands of details, and thats when i i kw the book would be possible was arriving at the archives at the museum and discovering over three and a half thousand pressure testimonies, hundreds of which describes pilecki in action or described moments that he would have witnessed. So i was able to Start Building up scenes come testing, his own writing for actors and creating really immersive experience of pileckis time in the camp. This approach was great for giving readers that sense of being alongside pilecki. But i want to leave with a small anecdote about how this approach also help me solve one of those great mysteries since i began the project with which was into the question what happened to pileckis reports he smuggled out of the camp . Pilecki describes sending his first report in october 1940, a few weeks after his time in auschwitz, and hes already witnessed incredibly brutal atmosphere whereby the germans would beat, starve to death, and brutalize the pressures to emphasize again which is polish nationals, jews and polls and catholics but all polish nationals. He witnessed all of this and he knew he had to inform the world. He gives us the name of his messenger, alexander, but he says no more no doubt he was concerned that if he had said more in his writing that perhaps after the war the communists would have tracked them down and arrested him. Armed with that name, my researcher in loss or in warsaw was able to find alexanders family, his son, and here is a picture of him. He had no idea that his dad was pileckis first messenger from the camp might he did know who his dad had stayed with. And armed with that name, my researcher went back to the underground study trust in west london and there are hundreds of reports from the underground in the archives. But with that name she managed to track down a folder in which was contained the story of how pileckis report carried out by alexander from the camp as released fraser made its way all across occupied europe to reach london. I described that incredible journey in the book but it wanted to leave you today with the remarkable message that pilecki wanted to tell the world and october 1940. Heres what he wanted to say. We begged the polish government, for the love of god, to bomb the camp and end our tour of it. Shipper die in the fact it would be a relief given the conditions. This is the urgent and well considered request sent on behalf of comrades by the witness of their torment. Thats Witold Pilecki when i heard those words i had this bumps, because they are pretty much verbatim what pilecki made alexander memorize while he was in the camp. And its a stunning i didnt think what might have happened i went on to trace up to ten pileckis report. Each time i would find you the same sort of process of deductive reasoning and finding family members and retracing journeys and find out these reports made their way to london. The reason why i argue in the book, why im so passionate about pileckis story, the reason why its so important is that he charts the steps to his writings by which the nazis turned auschwitz into a concentration camp for polish nationals into the center of the final solution. And his reports bear witness in this extraordinary way to these different steps. Its one of histories great what might have been, what wouldve happened had the world listened sooner. So i i would like to leave it there and reconnect with you all, and my sincere apologies for the failure of the screen show. That was frustrating but hopefully we can enlighten you. Thank you very much. Thank you, jack. I would like to just clear up a little bit for a moment if thats okay, the story, chronologies everything. So pilecki was around 32 and half years in auschwitz, yes . Yes. He escaped in was in april 43 . Yes. So there are really two major faces, maybe three major phases in history of the camp that he sees. He sees the original basically the formation of the polish concentration camp, polish nationalists, and [inaudible] resistance and so on. Then already in 41 theres something of a british and then russian arriving there and when the first gassing takes place, and when also you get the mass murder, and you described it in some detail, of prisoners who were not deemed to be useful anymore and he were sent originally the gas chambers in germany itself that they used for the killings of people who are murdered, the program to kill the disabled. And then finally in the spring of 42 [inaudible] and also to be put. Initially they are put in small gas chambers and the crematory was the gas chambers are completed, they are taken into kind of, they have begun the construction in 42 abets the time that pilecki leads. Now, i just wonder because there is of course quite and extent of kind of literature from auschwitz. And that focuses very much on the reports that actually came out in 1944. So most famous report is report that escape from the camp. It basically tried to warn the hungarian jews of what awaits them. The uncaring but not yet been transported auschwitz and that a moment london in the washington and there is a second come another in some of 1944 as raf and the United States Army Air Force if auschwitz should be lost. This then is particularly the moment of the great crematorium. I just would like maybe im interested in your of the drudge report and the pilecki request written in 1940 with auschwitz was still a relatively small concentration camp and the final solution does it mean at the moment yet [inaudible] in order to come out in 44 request for bombing at the time. And i wonder if you would be able to reflect a little bit i dont is a compare and contrast what about there in 1940 come for example, in london, in 1944, the stated credibility of those reports and [inaudible] perceived threat if you could maybe play a bit. Thank you, robert again, thats a great overview and i can help sort of show the forward trajectory of pileckis story. Well note about that the date, or many of us do, in 1944 about whether or not to auschwitz dickinson ways it is become a symbol for all of us as to what we should have done to try to stop the holocaust. But, of course, what pileckis stewardesses focused attention on his request many years before that in 1940. There are different circumstances and to think its important to understand the context by which pileckis report from the camp is considered by the allies high command. In december 1940, early 1941, britain is under attack by the blitz. The number of operational bombers that the raf has is below 200. There is no immediate allies or help from the americans. Britain is very much alone and in some ways as i came to uncover the discussion informer commands between men like the air Marshal Charles and his subordinate, Richard Pierce, i sort of came to appreciate some of their concerns. They debated whether or not to bomb auschwitz and took on board pileckis request very seriously. But Richard Pierce said something that was quite interesting. He sort of recognize it would be impossible to reach with british warplanes all the way to auschwitz, which was true. There was no radar at that stage. It wouldve been the Longest Mission under ever undertaken by the raf. He wouldve really push the bounds of possibility. Richard pierce said would be incredible difficult to do it, but it would potentially be a political symbol. In the way his passing the buck because you want ultimately someone like churchill to order it. But that idea is really interesting. The raf decided against bombing auschwitz and early 1941 for those reasons. But i came to feel during the search that had they tried, however doomed and flawed, it wouldve been a political symbol symbol, a very powerful one in alerting the world both to existence of auschwitz, is one of the crazy things about the camps history is for how long its name was hardly known among the allies. But it would also create a precedent of trying to stop nazi atrocities. And that really is a crucial point, because two years later the americans were on board. There was access and then to heavy bombers, liberators, land casters were more than capable of hitting auschwitz. But when the allies gain against the bait this idea bombing the camp to stop the atrocities they there, they actually referred back to that first debate in their files to argue as to why they shouldnt bomb auschwitz. They said it wouldnt be possible, in which is be a political symbol. That debate in 1944 1944 was bg informed by that first request from pilecki. I think thats why its so important to both understand the context and for the decision regarding pileckis request, in order to see how it then played out in light of thinking, this constant stepping back from taking action. The interesting thing of course is that one of the great problems in the his geography of response, im talking to keep up the holocaust of course is that from 1942 onwards it was always said that the english and the americans had to deal with in their own populations. And then any intervention which was explicitly to be done on behalf of the jews was considered to be unpopular people would make the world more difficult to fight because it would now become a war to save the jews and that was of course not something that many people would agree with. And in the course in the 1940s the bait, the jewish dimension of auschwitz didnt really exist was as it was primarily a polish camp so that in some way i would say theres the possibility of actually, interesting look at, lets call it prejudice, how the prejudices of in this case the military in england which of course were very much propolish in 1940, the polls were heroic and a very deserving people and, of course, an ally even if they had that support the much in 1939 but they had come to work on their behalf. That would have i think colbert and shaded their discussion in a way that in 1944 when it really was now about the jews in auschwitz, it mightve gone into a different direction. I havent really compared these discussions from the perspective but i think that probably it would be a very interesting way to look into the souls of these military men and look at their prejudices. I came to the conclusion, i write about this extensively in the book, for me as a huge part of pileckis story is having his experience in the camp contrasted with what was happening in the allied capitals, their response to what he was telling them. I came to conclusion that whilst it was understandable the allies response, the british response in 1941 to that first request by late 42, 43, the body of material from pilecki from many sources really made action, the lack of action unconscionable. Once i take approach to history that we shouldnt seek to judge or overwrite our experiences on to those of the time, i have tried to let everyone have their say as it were in represent their thinking. Does become a really damning indictment of the failure to take action. Theres something else. I had the pleasure of writing once a short biography of a person, a young man who ultimately was killed in the holocaust, because i edited his diary and i do right in 80 page biography of them to understand the diary. And research is likely theres a certain moment that it clicks. That does relationship that people fall in love with the character, that you suddenly get to the core of what the demand the name is, both in your case in my it was a man. I would just like to know pilecki, in the beginning he is a shadowy figure and so what is a moment that you really thought okay, i know who you are now, i think really i understand you, and then that you get the sense of if there is a relationship between you and him and that you look forward in some way shaking his hand in the afterlife . Thats very nice thoughts. I think a lot of the quiz is this pursuit of your subjects and it often feels like you are playing catchup. But i definitely remember the first time where i really felt that i did arrive at the scene points in time as pilecki, and that was when i was stage every creation of his amazing escape from the camp and is one reason i would urge everyone to read the book. Because his escape from auschwitz is one of the great wartime escapes from any concentration camp. He wrote about in his report and amazingly a fellow escape also read about the experience so those two nerds together get such a rich experience of what it was like to escape the camp. I wanted to follow in his footsteps so that meant escaping escaping, as it were, from the camp, the same hour, the same day, albeit decades later. That meant 2 a. M. I started sort of making a dash for it along the banks of the River Crossing over the same railway bridge that pilecki had done in finding the spots that pilecki describes in his report, but doesnt identify otherwise when the sun starts to rise and he makes a dash for across the fields to where to take shelter. Pilecki describes this hundred mile journey across southern poland. He named some of the villages but doesnt say much more, and i visited those villages. I was usually turn up and say where is the oldest person here . And on several occasions i was introduced to families who had sheltered pilecki and is two fellow escape verse. It was a really lovely moment escapees reaching the safe house where pilecki spent some time to recuperating safe from nazi clutches. Maybe i can just share with you now that scene. Lets see, i know this is asking for trouble. Here is pilecki and is two fellow escapees. This is a man who im so sorry. Here is the man here is pilecki and his escapees. Here is his host at that safe house. Here is the house today when i got to visit it. That little girl [inaudible] that table you see filled with snacks and is a table where pilecki sat down and started writing his first thoughts about the camp as a free man. And i got to sit at the table and it was a moment, i think you can emphasize with, you felt like i had reached, caught up with my subject. I got to share in that moment both the amazing hospitality of my posts but also that moment when i got to reflect on pileckis experience in the camp as he had done at the same spot. If you were to meet him now, what would be the first question you would ask him . Well, i think for those of you who read through the book, i think, so the camp to his escape, but when he returns to his family, both after escaping and then postwar poland, he really struggles to connect with his family. You know, its a real sense of tragedy there. Of course there are very good reasons. Poland after the war was subjected to a communist take over, which is really worth emphasizing for everyone here. You know, 1945 the victory parades, that wasnt the experience of poland and pilecki was plunged into this new struggle but within that struggle meant his family couldnt engage with them and that was really brought home to me by a detailed his son told me, that pilecki had never spoken to his wife, maria, about his experience in the camp in the years afterwards. That really touched me knowing how much pilecki was thinking, working over his experience, that he wasnt able to share it. One of the last things that he wrote as a free man was also one of his most beautiful, and it was talking about sitting with friends in the camp, knowing that they were going to execute the next day, and then reflecting to him a great regret in life was that they hadnt shared more with those they loved. That was pileckis final thoughts as a free man. It i could see him i would just want to ask him whether he felt that he could at that point Start Connecting with his family again. I think everyone has had periods of stress and turmoil in their lives. We know how disassociating that can become how that can drive wedges between those we love. I would love to think that there was a possibility of redemption because i think pilecki opposite that offer second final comments and something we can all take away from his story. I am right now looking at q a. The questions have been raised and im just picking out if its okay maybe i will do it. One question which came from cabin, basically its about the title, the book, the volunteer, and the question of course to what extent was he really a volunteer in the sense that he was a military professional and that he saw his task of course as part of a continuous war that he fought in the war as an officer while before the polish army. And that this was continuation of to what extent can you really talking about this as volunteer, if he was a voluntr works because the certain moment would suggest he had a choice. If he had really quite highly sense of duty and professionalism and in some way you might suggest maybe he must have volunteer at least a relationship to his own super so so to speak on his own superego . Thats a great question. Its a great question. The book is called the volunteer and at times somewhat summon the vault above image of pilecki raising his hand, ill do it. The story of how his mission was conceived is such an important one because it really cuts to the heart of something about pilecki that informs so much of his time in the camp. And that is this. Pilecki doesnt what much about politics other than to say he doesnt like politics and politicians in the way that are used issues to divide people. But there is one great act in this life, and that is when he stands up to his boss in the underground. This is shortly after the germans occupied warsaw and he is taken up the fight against them. His boss wants to publish a manifesto that is chauvinistic, nationalistic, the fines poland as being catholic and only catholic poles and pilecki is clearly divisive and he takes aa stand against his boss. He insists that he signed up with the main polish underground that has a much more inclusive agenda. His boss does, but in doing so he volunteers, pilecki, for a mission, a mission to auschwitz and its such a great scene in the butt because it really tells a lot about who pilecki was. He was taking a stand in the name of having a poland that was inclusive in which i doing banded together to fight the nazis. Of course he still have to decide to take the mission. Thats one thing that is boss said to him. Its pretty dangerous, he was told. Im going to have to ask you to volunteer. Of course being told here is a mission, you can do it if you want to or leave it of course, it was an impossible decision for pilecki. He still avoided the first round of the could of got him a sense of the camp as you struggle with this decision but in the end of course he did go. That for me and that is it essence of volunteering, that willing choice and why that scene that they begin the presentation with is so important for me because its that moment when he set aside, decided to leave behind his family, his immediate circle, everything you think he might be concerned with in order to begin this extraordinary journey. One of the people of course who is very famous as a man who informed special about the holocaust is young for reasons he became very famous of course was also because of his appearance in the movie where he gives incredible testimony and its very important in the movie. One of the interesting things, right at the beginning of the testimony as it is presented in the movie, when he goes into the ghetto, so hes invited by jewish leaders, to go into the warsaw cabinet to see for himself whats happening inside the ghetto in 1942 so that he can in some way when he goes to the allied capital he can sit with his own eyes. I can bear with us is something ive seen. This is not hearsay. And hes a polish roman aristocrat turkey admits to some prejudice against the jews and is actually quite wonderful because these jewish leaders i was meeting in the outside of the ghetto, there were not at all jewish. They were like polished gentleman and in the moment they go into the ghetto, they slip through a door, through the wall in the house and things like that and suddenly they became jewish. They were amongst themselves and is very interesting there was an incredible love and admiration for him but also for the fact that in some way he goes, were both recognize his presence and also struggle to transcend his prejudice. When he goes into auschwitz he doesnt go the because of whats happening to the troops. Auschwitz at the moment most important in the final solution but it becomes quite important. Since we are here speaking at the jewish heritage i just think maybe would be a good thing too, for a moment, consider pileckis kind of relationship to what was known in poland as the jewish problem. And the way he struggles with that. Thats a great question, robert, and its one that i felt i i needed to tackle in the book straightaway. Thats pilecki in prewar poland which was multiethnic, the first, the largest Jewish Population in the world, warsaw was just this melting pot of ideas and culture, but it was also a scene of antisemitism. And i think one thing that i i came to understand the course from research is its important to draw distinction between polish and antisemitism prewar and that of the nazis. I think when you it antisemitism you think about a road towards nazi ideology and that wasnt what life was like in prewar poland. There were nasty material in the press. There was a campaign to have polish jews emigrate to israel, and there were various types of discrimination and pilecki, that was part of his world from a conservative catholic background. I found evidence to suggest he held antisemitic views pick but i think even had i done what i think makes his story so important is that he left that all behind in his journey to the camp. He found a way to reach jan is immediate circle of friends, beyond his immediate conception of being polish and iie was in order to risk his life to call on crimes against soviet pows and the crimes against jewish families brought to the camp for extermination. So that for me with such an interesting question that i think it is so relevant to all of us today. How do we reach beyond our immediate concerns in order to emphasize empathize with the suffering of others wax that is pileckis challenge to us and what i think his story can really teach us. News of the holocaust as it was unfolding in 1942 and did such an incredible job of bringingback to the allies. And rightly celebrated in the United States. Hes a wellknown name. We know of course many reasons why paretskys name is not wellknown because of that suppression and during communism but i was wondering why since the 19 and his material has been widely available, why is he not being celebrated in the same way . What did it take until now that we are talking aboutthis remarkable man . My sentiment and this is true speculation but i think if were looking at the history of research at the auschwitz birkenaustate museum , i have a really Good Research department. Excellent historians but my sense is a little bit that there was an enormous amount of emphasis in their Research Department on resistance. Throughout, the resistance in the camp in the 1970s and 80s. And that in some way, many publications appear at the time that the name pilecki would not be mentioned because he was persona non grata. I think in some ways the emphasis on resistance in the lets say communist era in the Auschwitz Museum Research Enterprise which in some ways i think still is the core of my Research Done on ashley. Always her to the Research Department that auschwitz is doing and at a certain moment when we come into the late 1990s when the name of pilecki now becomes moreknown , its the street that leads to the museum is named after pilecki and so on that in some ways the Research Focus and in some ways the focus of the Auschwitz Birkenau Museum had shifted away from the issue of resistance so i think in some ways, the discovery of pileckis activities in some way came too late for the kind of natural flow of what the Auschwitz Museum was actually what material they were working on. It doesnt mean that new focus on research in their work i think was probably centered on pilecki but there were many things that when were looking at also the kind of ad and flow of things and research in the holocaust where were looking at Different Things today then we looked 20 years ago. Nowadays of course gender studies are very much informing our idea of what our moments. We realize there are certain moments in the 1990s after looking for 40 years on the history ofauschwitz , people started to realize they never looked at women inauschwitz. So at a certain moment it took time actually for that Research Focus to get basically to become equal to the work that was done so its probably a generation later for a new kind of consideration of the question of research and i think there are many unanswered questions. I think especially the relationship of lets call it polish Roman Catholic christian resistance groups versus the Jewish Resistance groups and the relationship between these two, resistance in auschwitz one, the main camp and auschwitz working out, theres still a lot of normalization around that relationship and i think once resistance comes back on the agenda , that he will be essential character in all of that. The explanation. It was really conceived in the 1980s, written in the early 1990s. Pilecki is not in that book andultimately in my later work , certainly after your book, he will become an even greater character and whatever narrative i might write in the future about auschwitz. We are now at a little after three. So i think that we moved up everyones time. I really would like to thank you very much for this excellent presentation, even if we had some issues with the slides i think. Im going to give it backto you samantha. Thank you jack, just to echo what robert said, this was an incrediblepresentation. You jack for the work that youve done. And everyone watching, please go out and buy jacks book. I know we have a lot of questions that came in that we didnt have time to get to today but hopefully you can find your answers to your questions in jacks book. Its available now in politics and prose and ends on. Com so ill be sending out those links in the coming days. In addition to more information about jack and more information about our upcoming public programs. Were continuing to do these programs once twice a week tuesdays and thursdays afternoons. So stay tuned for more and thank you guys again. Book tv continues on cspan2, television for seriousreaders. Welcome to a new Program Sponsored by the evidence of American History and im president of the institute. Where presenting important books in American History which unlike the 18thcentury volumes behind me our current by some of the major winning historians in our country. Most will be william roka and most recently on health a