Can a human be a drop in the bucket of history,
a tiny ping in a vast cistern, but jump in anyway?
In WW II, Witold Pileki, officer
in the Polish Underground,
hounded his commanders to allow
him to join Polish Jews sent to Auschwitz,
suspected something dreadful in that camp,
left his wife and two small children.
Arm-inked #4859, he discovered the atrocities.
For three years, smuggled reports
in dirty laundry to the outside,
every basket a chance for capture.
He knew what the prison guards did to spies.
His reports: gas chambers, ovens
to the Polish Underground.
Sent those atrocities to Americans and British.
No one believed.
No one would do such things!
We have a history of things done,
not a history of things not done.
How many would have been saved
if someone had listened?
Waited, arranged escapes for prisoners,
but nothing done. Frustrated,
faked typhus and escaped himself.
Spied against Russia till the Reds killed him.
We call so many heroes—tycoons, doctors,
baseball players, astronauts.
Is Witold still a hero
if nothing is done?
Originally published in The Bezine