photo: PKP Intercity/PKP Intercity
The Polish national carrier re-engaged in commemorating key events and figures from the history of Poland. On the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the birth of Colonel Told Pilecki, PKP Intercity, in cooperation with the Pilecki Institute, has glued one of the locomotives going to Berlin with a graphic reminiscent of this famous figure of Polish history.
The EU-44 Husarz locomotive, which will run between Warsaw and Berlin, where the Pilecki Institut is based, has been given a new look. The occasional graphic, the contents of which were prepared by the Institute, shows the figure of Sergeant Pilecki at the most important moments of his life: growing up in Vilnius, where he belonged to the Scout troop, pre-war times with his wife and children, staying in the Auschwitz camp, as well as a trial in post-war, communist Poland.
In the central place is a symbolic image of the sergeant major, who writes a famous report alerting the world to the situation in Auschwitz. On the locomotive, in Polish and English, the following slogan was placed: Jego odwaga inspires - His courage is inspiring.
Witold Pilecki was a Polish hero who, as a soldier who volunteered to be locked up in the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, to get intelligence on the operation of the camp and organize resistance among the prisoners. Thanks to the reports he wrote, the Allies received the first information about Nazi crimes in this concentration camp. He fled the camp in 1943 and participated in the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944.
After the war, he worked as an agent of the Polish government in exile and in Poland collected information about Soviet crimes in the Polish. However, the Communist secret police discovered him and he was executed in May 1948 in a prison in Warsaw. In 1990 he was officially rehabilitated, then in 2006 Pilecke was awarded the Order of the White Eagle. In 2013 r. Witold Pilecki has been promoted to the rank of Colonel.
The labeling of the locomotive on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the birth of Told Pilecki is another activity of the national carrier related to the commemoration of historical events and figures. This spring, a trample of a locomotive was running on the tracks, commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of the 3rd Silesian Uprising. Last year, PKP Intercity engaged in recoloring locomotives to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw, while in 2018, as part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Poland's independence, the carrier decorated 20 locomotives with white-and-red graphics.