First, the Auschwitz Protocols were compiled by Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler who escaped from Auschwitz in April 1944, and by Czeslaw Mordowicz and Arnost Rosin who escaped in May. The report was substantiated by the “Polish Major” whom Sir Martin Gilbert named as Jerzy Tabeau, a Polish doctor who had been in Auschwitz. Their combined report reached the Allies only in June. It was with that report that the news reached the West that the “unknown destination somewhere in the East” was Auschwitz and the Jews being brought there were in the main killed. It was the news of Auschwitz, which arrived only in June 1944 that prompted Churchill to write, on 7 July: “Get everything out of the Air Force you can, and invoke me if necessary.” It was not, sadly, as early as December 1943.

Secondly, Yad Vashem is a museum and archive that memorialises Jews killed in the Holocaust. The only non-Jews honoured in Yad Vashem, the Righteous Among the Nations, are those who risked their lives to save Jews and the process to have someone recognised as such is very rigourous. It was only recently that Yad Vashem decided to confer the honour on diplomats who, though not risking their lives, were able to save Jews, mainly before the war with visas so they could leave, and in Budapest during the war with diplomatic protection. In many cases these actions went against their governments’ orders and their diplomatic careers suffered as a result. Yad Vashem is a Jewish institution to commemorate and document Jewish life and death during the Second World War.

The brave actions of Witold Pilecki are separate from what became known as the Holocaust. He was a resistance fighter against the German occupiers and his work was through the Polish resistance. Had he been more successful, had the Polish resistance been able to take advantage of his communications, many lives could have been saved—Poles and European Jews among them. He is, and should be recognised as, a Polish national hero, and as a resistance fighter against a barbaric regime.

Unfortunately, Auschwitz, Birkenau and Buna-Monowitz, and their many sub-camps, were places of savagery and death for many Europeans, Jews among them. Had the war continued more Poles, Russians and Slavs would have been in the German’s sights. As Elie Wiesel said: “Not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims.” Pilecki’s focus was as a Polish national in a war that began on Polish soil. It is for his country to honour him.