Maximilian Kolbe

(1894-1941)

The death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau became the killing centre during WWII where the largest numbers of European Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Extermination was conducted on an industrial scale with some estimates running as high as three million persons killed here through gassing, starvation, disease, shooting and burning.

One Christian man who died here became a martyr to the truth of evils of Nazism - a true hero for our time, a saint who lived what he preached, total love toward God and man.

Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish priest who died as prisoner 16770 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, August 14, 1941. When a prisoner escaped from the camp, the Nazis selected 10 others to be killed by starvation in reprisal for the escape. One of the 10 selected to die, Franciszek Gajowniczek, began to cry: "My wife! My children! I will never see them again!" At this, St. Maximilian stepped forward and asked to die in his place. His request was granted ...

The story begins in 1894 - Raymond Kolbe was born near Lodz in a part of Poland then under Russian rule, of parents who worked at home as weavers. In 1910 he became a Franciscan, taking the name Maximilian.

The young Maximilian Kolbe

Maximilian studied at Rome and was ordained in 1919. He returned to Poland and taught Church history in a seminary. He built a friary just west of Warsaw, which eventually housed 762 Franciscans and printed eleven periodicals (one with a circulation of over a million), including a daily newspaper.

In 1930, he went to Asia, where he founded friaries in Nagasaki and in India. In 1936, he was recalled to supervise the original friary near Warsaw. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, he knew that the friary would be seized, and sent most of the friars home. He was imprisoned briefly and then released, and returned to the friary, where he and the other friars began to organize a shelter for 3,000 Polish refugees, among whom were 2,000 Jews. The friars shared everything they had with the refugees. They housed, fed and clothed them, and brought all their machinery into use in their service.

Inevitably, the community came under suspicion and was watched closely. Then, in May 1941, the friary was closed down and Maximilian and four companions were taken to Auschwitz, where they worked with the other prisoners, chiefly at carrying logs. Maximilian carried on his priestly work surreptitiously, hearing confessions in unlikely places and celebrating the Lord's Supper.

Prisoners at Auschwitz were slowly and systematically starved, and when food was brought, everyone struggled to get his place and be sure of a portion. Father Maximilian however, stood aside in spite of the ravages of starvation, and frequently there would be none left for him. At other times he shared his meager ration of soup or bread with others.

A prisoner recalled that he and several others often crawled across the floor at night to be near the bed of Father Kolbe, to make their confessions and ask for consolation. Father Kolbe pleaded with his fellow prisoners to forgive their persecutors and to oveercome evil with good.

A Protestant Doctor who treated the patients in Block Twelve testified that Father Kolbe waited until all the others had been treated before asking for help. He constantly sacrificed himself for the others.

To discourage escapes, the camp had a rule that if a man escaped, ten men would be killed in retaliation. In July 1941, a man from Kolbe's bunker escaped. The dreadful irony of the story is that the escaped prisoner was later found drowned in a camp latrine, so the terrible reprisals had been exercised without cause. But the remaining men of the bunker were led out.

"The fugitive has not been found!" the commandant Karl Fritsch screamed. "Ten of you will die for him in the starvation bunker." The prisoners trembled in terror. A few days in this bunker without food and water, and a man's intestines dried up and his brain turned to fire.

The ten were selected, including Franciszek Gajowniczek, imprisoned for helping the Polish Resistance. He couldn't help a cry of anguish. "My poor wife!" he sobbed. "My poor children! What will they do?"

When he uttered this cry of dismay, Maximilian stepped silently forward, took off his cap, and stood before the commandant and said, "I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children."

Astounded, the Nazi commandant asked, "What does this Polish pig want?"

Father kolbe pointed with his hand to the condemned Franciszek Gajowniczek and repeated "I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children."

Observers believed in horror that the commandant would be angered and would refuse the request, or would order the death of both men. The commandant remained silent for a moment. What his thoughts were on being confronted by this brave priest we have no idea. Amazingly, however, he acceded to the request. Apparently, the the Nazis had more use for a young worker than for an old one, and was happy to make the exchange. Franciszek Gajowniczek was returned to the ranks, and the priest took his place.

Kolbe was thrown down the stairs of Building 13 along with the other victims and simply left there to starve. One by one, the men died of hunger and thirst. Maximilian Kolbe encouraged the others with prayers, psalms, and meditations on the Passion of Christ. After two weeks, only four were alive. The cell was needed for more victims, and the camp executioner, a common criminal called Bock, came in and injected a lethal dose of cabolic acid into the left arm of each of the four dying men. Kolbe was the only one still fully conscious and with a prayer on his lips, the last prisoner, Father Kolbe, raised his arm for the executioner. His wait was over ...

So it was that Father Maximilian Kolbe was executed on August 14, 1941, at the age of forty-seven years, a martyr of charity. His body was removed to the crematorium, and without dignity or ceremony was disposed of, like hundreds of thousands who had gone before him, and hundreds of thousands more who would follow.

The cell where he died is now a shrine. Maximilian Kolbe was beatified as Confessor by Paul VI in 1970, and canonized as Martyr by Pope John Paul II in 1981.

And the man he saved - Franciszek Gajowniczek ?

Franciszek Gajowniczek

He died on March 13, 1995, at Brzeg in Poland, 95 years old - and 53 years after Kolbe had saved him. But he was never to forget the ragged monk. After his release from Auschwitz, Gajowniczek spent the next five decades paying homage to Father Kolbe, honoring the man who died on his behalf.

In December 1994, the 94-year-old Pole visited St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church of Houston. His translator on that trip, Chaplain Thaddeus Horbowy, said: "He told me that as long as he . . . has breath in his lungs, he would consider it his duty to tell people about the heroic act of love by Maximilian Kolbe."

Father Kolbe`s life serves as eulogy to the millions who perished in World War II.

Source: Kolbe, The Saint from Auschwitz