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Evil Woven into Everyday Life | Dr Joanna Nikel on the Memoirs of a German Official from His Stay in the General Government

"It is rare for a document to find its way into archival collections in which the voice of an official of the occupation apparatus himself – written down without any intention of accusation, and even stressing his own sense of normality – becomes one of the most eloquent testimonies to the criminal nature of the system he served", writes Dr Joanna Nikel in her initial commentary on the materials received by the Pilecki Institute.

News

The hitherto unknown memoirs of a German official from occupied Poland have been donated to the Pilecki Institute

A unique document has been added to the Pilecki Institute’s archives: the previously unpublished and unknown memoirs of a German official who worked in the civil administration of the General Government during the Second World War.

News

14 books nominated for this year’s Witold Pilecki International Book Award

On Saturday, 5 September, at the Autumn Book Fair in Warsaw, the Pilecki Institute announced the titles and authors of 14 books nominated for this year’s Witold Pilecki International Book Award.

News

„Soviet Central Asia as a Totalitarian Testing Ground” - international academic conference

Three days, dozens of presentations, and researchers from Poland and abroad summed up the international academic conference held at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw on 2–4 September.

News

Karol Madaj appointed Director of the Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidarity and Valor

Marta Cienkowska, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, has appointed Karol Madaj Director of the Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidarity and Valor in Warsaw. His five-year term will begin on 30 August 2026. From 1 September 2025, Karol Madaj served as the acting director of the Pilecki Institute.

News

Hacker attack on the websites of the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw, Berlin, and Augustów

On the night of August 13–14 our websites suffered another serious hacking attack. Content bearing the hallmarks of Russian propaganda and disinformation — targeting Polish history and reinforcing anti-Ukrainian narratives — was deliberately placed on the Institute's pages devoted to Augustów, Berlin, and Warsaw.

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Academic conference “Oppositional Engagement of Women in Authoritarian and Totalitarian Systems of the 20th Century: Poland in a Comparative European Perspective (1919–1989)”

The second academic conference in a series “Oppositional Engagement of Women in Authoritarian and Totalitarian Systems of the 20th Century: Poland in a Comparative European Perspective (1919–1989)” brought together representatives of various fields of the humanities and social sciences from numerous research centers in Poland and abroad.

Research news

Notice of Competition for Participation in the 2026 Exercising Modernity Academy and Notice of Competition for Financial Scholarships for Cultural Activities under the 2026 Exercising Modernity Program

The application deadline has been extended to 19 July 2026!

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Accountability for War Crimes. New book from Pilecki's expert

It is an expanded English-language edition of the monograph "Problem odpowiedzialności karnej za zbrodnie wojenne w pracach rządu polskiego na emigracji (1939–1945)", which in 2023 was awarded a grant under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education’s “Excellent Science II” program for the translation and open-access publication of the book abroad.

News

12 July | Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Augustów Roundup

12 July is celebrated as the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Augustów Roundup. The roundup began 81 years ago on this day – on 12 July 1945, two months after the end of the Second World War.

News

The Volhynian Crime: The Pilecki Institute and its scholarly and research activities

On the Sunday of 11 July 1943, units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Stepan Bandera faction) – a radical fascist organization striving to build an independent Ukrainian state without any national minorities – carried out a coordinated attack on almost a hundred Polish settlements in the German-occupied Volhynian Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic.

Commemoration of Rozalia Socha, Murdered for Helping Jews During the German Occupation | Called by Name

On 2 June 2026, in Wola Rafałowska near Rzeszów, the Pilecki Institute unveiled a stone with a plaque commemorating Rozalia Socha, who in 1942 was murdered by the Germans for hiding a group of Jews: Izaak, Fajga, and Regina Goldman, as well as two women and three children. This was the 41st commemoration held as part of the “Called by Name” program.

News

On better protection against crimes against humanity: Summary of the international conference “The Roots of Crimes Against Humanity”

The international conference “The Roots of Crimes Against Humanity: Bridging the Normative Gap” successfully concluded at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw. Organized on the 20th and 21st of April 2026, in cooperation with the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the event aimed to provide historical and academic foundations for the first-ever United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity.

News

April 30 Deadline: Poland Proposes "Child-Sensitive Approach" for New UN Convention

Beginning with today’s (April 30) deadline for all nations to submit their official comments to the United Nations on the draft of the proposed Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity, Poland has made an aggressive bid to become one of the leaders representing the globe’s most vulnerable victims.

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Research cooperation between the International Centre for War Crimes Trials (ICWC) and the Pilecki Institute

The Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidarity and Valor has entered into official cooperation with the International Centre for War Crimes Trials (ICWC) at Philipps University in Marburg.

News

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya visits the Augustów Roundup Memorial House

On 22 April 2026, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of the Belarusian democratic opposition, visited the Augustów Roundup Memorial House.

News

Research paper of an employee of the Pilecki Institute in a Q1-indexed journal

Dr. Tomasz Chinciński published an article in the Q1 journal Cogent Arts & Humanities on the attitudes of the German population in Poland incorporated into the Third Reich.

News

Second debate in the “Berlin in Warsaw” series. Discussion on reparations and compensation [video]

“Compensation, damages, reparations: what is realistic, what is symbolic?” This was the title of the second debate in the “Berlin in Warsaw” series. Experts on Polish-German relations presented different perspectives on the difficult relationship between the two nations.

News

Pilecki in NYC. The debate “Lessons from Nuremberg for the 21st Century”

The debate “Lessons from Nuremberg for the 21st Century” focused on the legacy of the Nuremberg Trials and their real impact on the development of contemporary international law and the methods of prosecuting war criminals.

News

Germany on Poland: Images, Memory and “Blind Spots” | Event video recording

“What is one ‘missing frame’ in the German imagination of Poland?” Dr. Aleksandra Burdziej asked the German guests in the opening question of the discussion launching the “Berlin in Warsaw” series.

News

"Germans Appropriate the Polish Experience of Victimhood. Colonial patterns of thinking emerge in the debate on collaboration" by Hanna Radziejowska and Mateusz Fałkowski

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 11, 2026. Article translated from German into English.