– We Poles, on whose land, occupied at the time by Nazi Germany, Germany built this extermination industry and this concentration camp, are today the guardians of memory. In a painful sense, one could say that we are continuing the extraordinary mission that Captain Pilecki took upon himself voluntarily during World War II. He deliberately allowed himself to be imprisoned and confined in this camp in order to bear witness – stated President Andrzej Duda during the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

– Today, as the heirs of Captain Pilecki in a sense, we watch over these places. Poland cares for these sites precisely so that memory does not perish. So that it does not fade, so that it is always remembered, and through this memory, the world never again allows such a dramatic human catastrophe, or more precisely, a catastrophe for humanity, to occur – he continued.