Resistance movement in Auschwitz

Using the name Tomasz Serafiński (prisoner number 4859), Pilecki had allowed himself to be captured by Germans in a street round up (łapanka) with the goal of having himself sent to Auschwitz to gather information and organize resistance inside.

[3] After the western part of the country was annexed by Nazi Germany during the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, Oświęcim (Auschwitz) was located administratively in the German Province of Upper Silesia, Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz.

Auschwitz was first suggested as the location of a concentration camp for Polish nationals by SS-Oberführer Arpad Wigand, an aide to Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski.

[4] Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), approved the site in April 1940, intending to use the facility to house political prisoners.

In February 1942 Col. Kazimierz Heilman-Rawicz [pl] (in the camp hiding under the name Jan Hilkner) organized a cell of the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union of Armed Struggle), ZWZ.

This was achieved in 1942 when ZOW and other smaller groups formed a single organization associated with the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK), the successor to ZWZ.

In addition to a Jewish resistance group, there existed Czech, Russian, Yugoslav, French, Austrian and German ones, mostly with a leftist or socialist political bent.