Synopsis/Details
In the darkest chapter of World War II, one man made the unthinkable choice — to voluntarily enter Auschwitz.
Witold Pilecki, a Polish army officer and resistance fighter, infiltrates Nazi-occupied Warsaw under a false identity to report on Germany’s treatment of civilians. When rumors of mass executions and extermination camps reach the Polish Underground, Witold takes a mission no one else dares: get arrested and sent to Auschwitz — the most secretive and lethal of Hitler’s camps — and report back from the inside.
Once inside, he endures savage beatings, forced labor, and starvation while documenting the unimaginable cruelty, meticulously gathering names, numbers, and blueprints of Nazi operations. He organizes an underground resistance, smuggles intelligence through daring couriers, and pleads for Allied intervention that never comes. As Auschwitz grows into a machine of industrialized genocide, Witold escapes to warn the world — only to face betrayal, Soviet occupation, and a rigged trial branding him a traitor in postwar Poland.
Told with haunting realism and emotional depth, The Volunteer is a gripping portrait of moral courage. Like The Pianist and Schindler’s List, it confronts the brutality of history through one man’s defiance. Witold’s final words — “Long live free Poland” — echo long after his execution, as history finally honors the hero it tried to erase.
This is not just a war story. It is a testament to resistance in the face of evil — and a warning of what silence allows.
