The authors present a sophisticated game of security: officers and secret collaborators of the communist secret service. The purpose of Operation “Monastery” was not only to capture Pilecki’s group, but also to set a trap, to carry out a provocation that was intended to “prove” that the “volunteer to Auschwitz” wanted to liquidate top functionaries of the leadership of the Ministry of Public Security.

The film tells the story of the final 1.5-year period of Witold Pilecki’s life and his volunteer mission to Poland – from his return from Ancona, Italy (in consultation with Gen. Wladyslaw Anders) in December 1945, until his arrest in Warsaw in May 1947.

A complete novelty is the showing of authentic places connected with Pilecki’s story – from the German Auschwitz camp, to communist Poland – the conspiratorial premises, finally the Rakowiecka Street prison where they were martyred, to an almost unknown edifice in the center of Warsaw, where they were “tried.” The film features, among others, historians Prof. Wieslaw Jan Wysocki, Dr. Adam Cyra, Dr. Tomasz Labuszewski, Rev. Tomasz Trzaska, family members of Witold Pilecki and other intelligence officers. (PAP)