Father Maximillian Kolbe

After speaking at a conference in Poland, my wife and I were taken to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp where thousands were executed. There we learned about Father Maximillian Kolbe, a Polish priest who gave up his life to save someone else.

Born in 1894 in a poor home, he was a very able man Franciscan priest who established a large friary near Warsaw and subsequently friaries in Japan and India. In 1936 he returned to lead the Warsaw priory which by then housed 762 monks and printed eleven periodicals, one of which had a circulation of over a million. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, he knew that the friary would be seized, and so sent most of the friars home. He was imprisoned briefly and then released, and returned to the friary. There he and other remaining friars began to organise it as a shelter for 3,000 Polish refugees, among whom were 2,000 Jews who were housed, fed and clothed. They also continued to publish literature, some of which was anti-Nazi.

In May 1941 the friary was closed down and Maximilian and four companions were taken to the concentration camp in Auschwitz. 

In order to discourage escapes there was a rule that if someone did escape ten men would be killed in retaliation. In July 1941 one man from Kolbe’s bunker went missing.

‘The fugitive has not been found,’ the Camp Commandant yelled. “You will all pay for this. Ten of you will locked in the starvation bunker without food or water until they die.”

Ten men were randomly selected, including Franciszek Gajowniczek, who had been arrested for helping the Polish resistance. This poor man cried out,

“My poor wife, my poor children. what will they do?”

At this point Father Kolbe stepped out of the line and, took off his cap, and stood before the Commandant.

“I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children.”

The astounded Commandant asked,

“What does this Polish pig want?”

Father Kolbe repeated his request, pointing to Franciszek,

“I am a Catholic priest. I would like to take his place. He has a wife and children.”

The offer was accepted. Franciszek was returned to the line of prisoners and Father Kolbe joined the other nine as they were pushed down the stairs in Block 13 and locked into the small cell in the basement. It was hell in there as one by one the inmates died. After two weeks there were still four alive so these were injected with a lethal dose of carbolic acid. Kolbe was the last to die, he simply offered his arm to the executioner. Their bodies were taken to the crematorium and destroyed.

The irony was that that body of the prisoner who had supposedly escaped was later found drowned in the latrine.

Later Franciszek, who survived the war, said,

“I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me, a stranger.”

Such christian love can only come from understanding what Jesus has done for each of us.