January 27, 2025 • 13 mins
For An Army of Normal Dead Folks, Larry Reed tells the story of the Polish hero who spied on the Nazis and the Soviets. And paid the ultimate price for it.
Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premium
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
So he volunteered to get arrested by the Germans, hoping
that they wouldn't simply shoot him, and that they might
then send him to this place called Auschwitz so he
could find out from the inside what was going on
and hopefully smuggle out documents or somehow get the word out.
He got his wish.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an
inter City Memphis and that last part I don't know.
Somehow we won an Oscar for the film about our team.
It's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will just
(00:47):
never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and
nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on
CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. Guys,
that's us, you and me deciding, Hey, you know what
I can help. And that's exactly what be told. Poletski did,
(01:07):
as you just heard. And there's a bunch more to
his heroism, which are about to hear from real heroes
author Larry Reid. As we pay tribute to him as
part of our special series drum Roll and Army of
Normal Dead Folks. Right after these brief messages from our
(01:28):
general sponsors, here's one that this guy may be the
bravest human being I've ever heard of in my life.
Anybody to purposely get himself captured, to go into a
(01:50):
concentration camp, to be brutally beaten, just in order to
let people know about what was really going on inside him. Yes,
now that's a guy, and I don't want to mispronounce
his name, but I think it's We're told Pilecki, Peletski.
(02:11):
He told Peletski Okay, bravery beyond measure. Wow, that's the truth.
Tell us about mister Puleski.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Okay. I did not meet him. He was executed by
the Soviet Communists in nineteen forty eight, but I did
meet his son. His son and his daughter are still
living well in their nineties today. V Told Puletski played
an important role as a teenager when Poland reappeared on
the map after one hundred and twenty three year absence
(02:44):
at the end of World War One. Poland regained its
independence with the end of that war, but immediately was
invaded by Lenin and the Bolsheviks from the Soviet Union
then Russia soon to become the Soviet Union, because they
wanted to take Poland back, and Poletski fought, was decorated
for bravery, and Poland succeeded in throwing back the Soviets
(03:09):
under Lendin and for the next eighteen years, Poletski raises
a family and normal guy. Yeap, highly regarded. He had
been decorated, as I say, during the war, but he
was just a normal guy.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Highly discreat for his bravery in war, but yep, that
wasn't his life. His life was his wife, his good.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
That's right, and his small business. And so he was
also known as a philanthropist as his business grew. But
then in nineteen thirty nine, Hitler invades Poland from the west,
and by agreement with the Soviets, two weeks later, Stalin
invades Poland from the east.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I mean, you know, no, God goodness, if you're Poland.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Oh my gosh. Well, the Poles didn't roll over and
play dead. They immediately formed powerful resistance movement. Peletski said
goodbye to his family as he joined the Polish army
again and fought against both the Soviets and the Nazis.
Within a year, the Polish resistance became aware of a
(04:14):
complex being built near Krakoff in southern Poland, a huge,
sprawling complex that was at first a prison for Poles
that the Nazis were creating. It was not yet the
Jewish concentration camp we know today as Auschwitz. It would
soon become that. But Poletski was one of those who said,
(04:37):
we need to get someone on the inside to find
out what's going on there and tell the world, find
out what's happening to our comrades. So he volunteered to
get arrested by the Germans, hoping that they wouldn't simply
shoot him, and that they might then send him to
this place called Auschwitz so he could find out from
the inside what was going on and hopefully smuggle out
(04:58):
documents or some I'll get the word out. He got
his wish, he was sentenced.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
This man had a wife and kids, yeah, two kids.
We're not talking about a twenty two year old guy here.
We're talking about this guy and is in his late thirties.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yes, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And he purposely gets captured, yep, so that he can
be sent to Auschwitz. Ye, so that he can document
what was really going on another story, similar to these
other stories where people just complacent, people don't really want
to know what's going on. That's what he's going to
(05:34):
put it in their faces. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
What an extraordinary man he was, And I echo what
you said at the start of this bill that he
is I think the bravest person I've ever come to
know of. I don't know of anybody braver than he
told Poleski. Well, while he was in Auschwitz, of course
he was subjected to inhumane treatment and disease and all
(05:57):
the punishing consequences of being holed up in such a place.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And ye had lie stomach issues. Besides the beating, the
environment itself killed people.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh yeah, absolutely, he saw it every day. But at
the same time he was looking for every opportunity to
find people in prison as he was, who could help
him form some sort of internal resistance. He built a group,
gave it a name, and these were people. These were
prisoners who would help him smuggle out documents, stealing from
(06:32):
the offices of the German High Command. They smuggled out
documents for about six months. They actually built from crude
materials a radio transmitter and from inside Ouschwitz they were
broadcasting a message over.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
That's the craziest thing ever. Yeah, for six bays actually
were able to broadcast radio from inside Austlers.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
It was like Hogan's Heroes, but without the comedy, but
for real, Yeah, exactly. Well, the combination of those radio broadcasts,
the documents he got smuggled out, and later testimony became
known as Vitold's Report, which was the first comprehensive eyewitness
account of what was going on inside the most notorious
(07:17):
of German Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz, where about two million
people perished. Well, Peletski his heroics don't end there. The
Germans begin to realize, Hey, there's stuff going on here
that we need to stop. Somebody's stealing stuff, somebody's getting
worried out about what's happening, and so some of his
(07:38):
comrades became fingered by the Nazis and were executed at
the camp on the spot. He had reason to believe
they were on to him, and then he engineered what
only one hundred and forty three people ever successfully did,
and that is an escape from Auschwitz. He escaped in
nineteen forty four, made his way two hundred miles to
(07:58):
the north in time to join in the battle for Warsaw.
Near the war's end, he was captured in.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
An ice reward. Yeah, spend your tim in Oshwitz actually
be able to escape with documents to prove what's going on,
just in time to join the front in Warsaw.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And then get captured by the Germans again. But because
he wasn't Jewish, she didn't have the markings that would
have revealed that. And it was the end of the war.
A lot of chaos. The Germans didn't realize who they had.
He was back in the army, but under an alias.
They just threw him in a pow camp. If they
had known that this was the guy who organized the
internal resistance at Auschwitz, they would have hung him or
(08:37):
shot him on the spot. Well, he's in a pow
camp for the waning weeks of the war, which ended
in May of nineteen forty five. In that summer, still
attached to the Polish Army, he's allowed to go see
his wife and children for the first time in several years,
but only briefly because the Polish Army wants to station
(08:59):
him in Italy, where they have a job helping to
occupy defeated Italy, and during that summer, the Poles begin
to realize the Soviets don't look like they want to
leave Poland. They've marched in from the east and now
the war's over, but they're not heading back home. So
(09:19):
now the Poles decided, we need to get somebody back
on the inside to spy on the Soviets to find
out what their aims were. And who better to do that,
they thought, than ve told Poletski. So now he's told
go back into your native country. And for the next
two years he was an undercover spy doing espionage on
(09:39):
Soviet activities until his cover was blown. He was put
on a show trial charged with espionage. You can still
see to this day the black and white clips of
the show trial that they put on on YouTube. And
he found guilty. And during that trial, by the way,
he didn't try to deny anything. He said basically said, sure,
(10:00):
I spied on you, and I'd do it again. The
museum that was the former prison took me to the
very cell where Peletski was held and then showed me
the very spot where he took a bullet to the
back of the head. Now he died there in nineteen
forty eight. Poland at that point was now a Communist
(10:24):
country because of the Soviet occupation, and they, the Polish regime,
did not want his name even to be mentioned. His
family was under strict orders never to mention his name.
They wanted to expunge him from history. And you might think, well,
why wouldn't they love to tell the story of how
he had fought against the Nazis. Well, yeah, but you
(10:44):
can't tell that without also telling the story of him
fighting fighting the Soviets. So the communist regime said, we
don't want anybody to know anything about him, and so
for decades it was illegal under Communism to even mention
his name. You go to Poland today, though, now that
the Communists have been gone since eighty nine, there are
monuments to him everywhere.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
This is written in your book, and this great mortuary
of the half living. Where nearby someone was wheezing his
final breath, someone else was dying, Another was struggling out
of bed, only to fall over onto the floor. Another
was throwing off his blankets, or talking in a fever
to his dear mother, or shouting or cursing someone out
(11:31):
while still others were refusing to eat or demanding water
in a fever and trying to jump out of the window,
arguing with the doctor asking for something. I lay thinking
that I still had the strength to understand everything that
was going on and to take it calmly in.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Mustrade, Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
When I read that? I mean, I was just like,
holy smokes.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, for three years he endured all the horrible things.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Unbelievable character, unbelievable courage, And I just wonder if the
story of Auschwitz would really be fully understood today if
not for this man.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Probably not, because certainly the first reports are due to him.
He helped to shape public understanding of what was going
on because he was the first to say, along with
his comrades, look at what's happening here. This is inhumane.
Bravest man, I think I've ever learned of real hearers.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yep, thank you for joining us for this special series
and army of normal dead folks. It be told Puleski
or other episodes have inspired you in general, or better yet,
to take action by maybe acting heroically in our current time.
(12:59):
By by Larry Read's book Real Heroes, where the story
came from or if you have story ideas for this series,
please let me know. I'd love to hear about it.
You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us,
and I promise you I will respond. If you enjoyed
this episode, share a friends and on social subscribe to
(13:22):
the podcast, rate it, review it, Join the army at
normalfolks dot us, consider becoming a Premium member. There any
and all of these things that will help us grow
an army of normal folks. Thanks to our producer, iron
Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what
you can
So he volunteered to get arrested by the Germans, hoping
that they wouldn't simply shoot him, and that they might
then send him to this place called Auschwitz so he
could find out from the inside what was going on
and hopefully smuggle out documents or somehow get the word out.
He got his wish.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an
inter City Memphis and that last part I don't know.
Somehow we won an Oscar for the film about our team.
It's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will just
(00:47):
never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and
nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on
CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. Guys,
that's us, you and me deciding, Hey, you know what
I can help. And that's exactly what be told. Poletski did,
(01:07):
as you just heard. And there's a bunch more to
his heroism, which are about to hear from real heroes
author Larry Reid. As we pay tribute to him as
part of our special series drum Roll and Army of
Normal Dead Folks. Right after these brief messages from our
(01:28):
general sponsors, here's one that this guy may be the
bravest human being I've ever heard of in my life.
Anybody to purposely get himself captured, to go into a
(01:50):
concentration camp, to be brutally beaten, just in order to
let people know about what was really going on inside him. Yes,
now that's a guy, and I don't want to mispronounce
his name, but I think it's We're told Pilecki, Peletski.
(02:11):
He told Peletski Okay, bravery beyond measure. Wow, that's the truth.
Tell us about mister Puleski.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Okay. I did not meet him. He was executed by
the Soviet Communists in nineteen forty eight, but I did
meet his son. His son and his daughter are still
living well in their nineties today. V Told Puletski played
an important role as a teenager when Poland reappeared on
the map after one hundred and twenty three year absence
(02:44):
at the end of World War One. Poland regained its
independence with the end of that war, but immediately was
invaded by Lenin and the Bolsheviks from the Soviet Union
then Russia soon to become the Soviet Union, because they
wanted to take Poland back, and Poletski fought, was decorated
for bravery, and Poland succeeded in throwing back the Soviets
(03:09):
under Lendin and for the next eighteen years, Poletski raises
a family and normal guy. Yeap, highly regarded. He had
been decorated, as I say, during the war, but he
was just a normal guy.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Highly discreat for his bravery in war, but yep, that
wasn't his life. His life was his wife, his good.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
That's right, and his small business. And so he was
also known as a philanthropist as his business grew. But
then in nineteen thirty nine, Hitler invades Poland from the west,
and by agreement with the Soviets, two weeks later, Stalin
invades Poland from the east.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I mean, you know, no, God goodness, if you're Poland.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Oh my gosh. Well, the Poles didn't roll over and
play dead. They immediately formed powerful resistance movement. Peletski said
goodbye to his family as he joined the Polish army
again and fought against both the Soviets and the Nazis.
Within a year, the Polish resistance became aware of a
(04:14):
complex being built near Krakoff in southern Poland, a huge,
sprawling complex that was at first a prison for Poles
that the Nazis were creating. It was not yet the
Jewish concentration camp we know today as Auschwitz. It would
soon become that. But Poletski was one of those who said,
(04:37):
we need to get someone on the inside to find
out what's going on there and tell the world, find
out what's happening to our comrades. So he volunteered to
get arrested by the Germans, hoping that they wouldn't simply
shoot him, and that they might then send him to
this place called Auschwitz so he could find out from
the inside what was going on and hopefully smuggle out
(04:58):
documents or some I'll get the word out. He got
his wish, he was sentenced.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
This man had a wife and kids, yeah, two kids.
We're not talking about a twenty two year old guy here.
We're talking about this guy and is in his late thirties.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yes, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And he purposely gets captured, yep, so that he can
be sent to Auschwitz. Ye, so that he can document
what was really going on another story, similar to these
other stories where people just complacent, people don't really want
to know what's going on. That's what he's going to
(05:34):
put it in their faces. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
What an extraordinary man he was, And I echo what
you said at the start of this bill that he
is I think the bravest person I've ever come to
know of. I don't know of anybody braver than he
told Poleski. Well, while he was in Auschwitz, of course
he was subjected to inhumane treatment and disease and all
(05:57):
the punishing consequences of being holed up in such a place.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And ye had lie stomach issues. Besides the beating, the
environment itself killed people.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh yeah, absolutely, he saw it every day. But at
the same time he was looking for every opportunity to
find people in prison as he was, who could help
him form some sort of internal resistance. He built a group,
gave it a name, and these were people. These were
prisoners who would help him smuggle out documents, stealing from
(06:32):
the offices of the German High Command. They smuggled out
documents for about six months. They actually built from crude
materials a radio transmitter and from inside Ouschwitz they were
broadcasting a message over.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
That's the craziest thing ever. Yeah, for six bays actually
were able to broadcast radio from inside Austlers.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
It was like Hogan's Heroes, but without the comedy, but
for real, Yeah, exactly. Well, the combination of those radio broadcasts,
the documents he got smuggled out, and later testimony became
known as Vitold's Report, which was the first comprehensive eyewitness
account of what was going on inside the most notorious
(07:17):
of German Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz, where about two million
people perished. Well, Peletski his heroics don't end there. The
Germans begin to realize, Hey, there's stuff going on here
that we need to stop. Somebody's stealing stuff, somebody's getting
worried out about what's happening, and so some of his
(07:38):
comrades became fingered by the Nazis and were executed at
the camp on the spot. He had reason to believe
they were on to him, and then he engineered what
only one hundred and forty three people ever successfully did,
and that is an escape from Auschwitz. He escaped in
nineteen forty four, made his way two hundred miles to
(07:58):
the north in time to join in the battle for Warsaw.
Near the war's end, he was captured in.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
An ice reward. Yeah, spend your tim in Oshwitz actually
be able to escape with documents to prove what's going on,
just in time to join the front in Warsaw.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And then get captured by the Germans again. But because
he wasn't Jewish, she didn't have the markings that would
have revealed that. And it was the end of the war.
A lot of chaos. The Germans didn't realize who they had.
He was back in the army, but under an alias.
They just threw him in a pow camp. If they
had known that this was the guy who organized the
internal resistance at Auschwitz, they would have hung him or
(08:37):
shot him on the spot. Well, he's in a pow
camp for the waning weeks of the war, which ended
in May of nineteen forty five. In that summer, still
attached to the Polish Army, he's allowed to go see
his wife and children for the first time in several years,
but only briefly because the Polish Army wants to station
(08:59):
him in Italy, where they have a job helping to
occupy defeated Italy, and during that summer, the Poles begin
to realize the Soviets don't look like they want to
leave Poland. They've marched in from the east and now
the war's over, but they're not heading back home. So
(09:19):
now the Poles decided, we need to get somebody back
on the inside to spy on the Soviets to find
out what their aims were. And who better to do that,
they thought, than ve told Poletski. So now he's told
go back into your native country. And for the next
two years he was an undercover spy doing espionage on
(09:39):
Soviet activities until his cover was blown. He was put
on a show trial charged with espionage. You can still
see to this day the black and white clips of
the show trial that they put on on YouTube. And
he found guilty. And during that trial, by the way,
he didn't try to deny anything. He said basically said, sure,
(10:00):
I spied on you, and I'd do it again. The
museum that was the former prison took me to the
very cell where Peletski was held and then showed me
the very spot where he took a bullet to the
back of the head. Now he died there in nineteen
forty eight. Poland at that point was now a Communist
(10:24):
country because of the Soviet occupation, and they, the Polish regime,
did not want his name even to be mentioned. His
family was under strict orders never to mention his name.
They wanted to expunge him from history. And you might think, well,
why wouldn't they love to tell the story of how
he had fought against the Nazis. Well, yeah, but you
(10:44):
can't tell that without also telling the story of him
fighting fighting the Soviets. So the communist regime said, we
don't want anybody to know anything about him, and so
for decades it was illegal under Communism to even mention
his name. You go to Poland today, though, now that
the Communists have been gone since eighty nine, there are
monuments to him everywhere.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
This is written in your book, and this great mortuary
of the half living. Where nearby someone was wheezing his
final breath, someone else was dying, Another was struggling out
of bed, only to fall over onto the floor. Another
was throwing off his blankets, or talking in a fever
to his dear mother, or shouting or cursing someone out
(11:31):
while still others were refusing to eat or demanding water
in a fever and trying to jump out of the window,
arguing with the doctor asking for something. I lay thinking
that I still had the strength to understand everything that
was going on and to take it calmly in.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Mustrade, Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
When I read that? I mean, I was just like,
holy smokes.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, for three years he endured all the horrible things.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Unbelievable character, unbelievable courage, And I just wonder if the
story of Auschwitz would really be fully understood today if
not for this man.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Probably not, because certainly the first reports are due to him.
He helped to shape public understanding of what was going
on because he was the first to say, along with
his comrades, look at what's happening here. This is inhumane.
Bravest man, I think I've ever learned of real hearers.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yep, thank you for joining us for this special series
and army of normal dead folks. It be told Puleski
or other episodes have inspired you in general, or better yet,
to take action by maybe acting heroically in our current time.
(12:59):
By by Larry Read's book Real Heroes, where the story
came from or if you have story ideas for this series,
please let me know. I'd love to hear about it.
You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us,
and I promise you I will respond. If you enjoyed
this episode, share a friends and on social subscribe to
(13:22):
the podcast, rate it, review it, Join the army at
normalfolks dot us, consider becoming a Premium member. There any
and all of these things that will help us grow
an army of normal folks. Thanks to our producer, iron
Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what
you can
Host
Bill Courtney
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!