“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21
In September of 1939 Hitler’s army invaded Poland and
touched off World War II and one of the darkest chapters in the history of the
20th Century. The reasons for
Hitler’s invasion of Poland were manifold and will not be rehearsed in this
article (an excellent overview can be found on Vox.com here: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/1/6084029/hitlers-invasion-of-poland-explained)
but in terms of human pain, the Poles felt the weight of Nazi oppression in ways
many others in Europe did not. Not only
did they watch in horror as 6 million of their Jewish neighbors were “deported”
to the Nazi death camps, but they themselves, a strongly Catholic people, found
their faith and culture targeted for destruction.
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| Nazi March in Warsaw 1939 |
Father Maximilian Kolbe was a 45 year old priest at the time
of the invasion. He had returned to his Polish homeland just three years
earlier due to the health problems he was experiencing after years of
missionary service in Japan and later India.
As a young man, Kolbe had dream that inspired him to found a Christian
knighthood. This knighthood, called
Knights of the Immaculata, was devoted to virtuous living, prayer, service,
suffering, and defense of the Catholic church against it’s enemies. Membership grew in Poland to nearly 800 and
soon Fr. Kolbe founded a religious community which in turn built the largest
publishing house in the nation. Their
magazine alone had one million subscribers.
In addition to this, they published a Polish newspaper which was quite
critical of the Nazi agenda.
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| Kolbe's Arrest by the Nazis |
When the Nazi’s overran Poland, Fr. Kolbe was quickly
targeted for arrest and elimination. He
was a threat to the regime as the head of a religious order and major
publisher. He was also known to have
hidden thousands of Jews and Polish refugees in the different monasteries of
his order. Before long he found himself
as prisoner #16670 in the notorious Auschwitz Concentration camp.
During his imprisonment, Fr. Kolbe resolved to continue his
ministry as a priest to the prisoners.
His was an unusual parish behind electric fences, razor wire, and guard
towers. Certainly clandestine services
were offered whenever possible, but most of his ministry centered on simply
encouraging his fellow prisoners to trust in the love and care of God in the
midst of the evil and darkness that hemmed them in on all sides.
In July of 1941, 3
prisoners had managed a near miraculous escape from the camp. The commandant of Auschwitz decided to
retaliate with greater force to scare the rest of the prisoners away from
thinking of another escape. He randomly
selected 10 men who would be placed in an underground bunker without food or
water until they died. One of the men
selected was a recently captured sergeant in the Polish army named Franciszek Gajowniczek. When called forward to join the group of the
condemned Gajowniczek broke down and cried out “my wife, my children!” in
fear.
Standing in the assembly of prisoners from cellblock 14 and
watching all this was Father Kolbe.
Suddenly he stepped forward from the group and spoke to the guards.
“I wish to die for that man.
I am old; he has a wife and children.”
“Identify yourself prisoner!”
“I am a Catholic priest”
For no known reason,
the exchange was allowed. Gajowniczek
was sent to his cellblock and Kolbe and the others were led off to be stripped
naked and thrown into the pitch black of the starvation bunker.
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| Father Kolbe offers himself |
The desired screams of pain and madness that were to strike
terror in the hearts of the other prisoners never materialized. Instead hymns and prayers were overheard as
the prisoners suffered together. After
two weeks seven of the group had died a slow agonizing death, while Kolbe and
two others hung on to life having only their own urine to drink. The commandant, wanting to use the bunker
again ordered Kolbe and the others to be finished off by lethal injection. Kolbe and his fellow prisoners were
incinerated in the ovens of Auschwitz.
Did Kolbe’s sacrifice make a difference? In the life of one man it did. Franciszek Gajowniczek, the prisoner whose
life was saved, lived through the war and was freed from Auschwitz by the
allied forces. After a year-long search
he was able to locate and reunite with his wife Helena. Their two sons were killed by a bombing raid on
Warsaw during the war.
 |
| Auschwitz in Poland |
When Pope John Paul II canonized Maximilian Kolbe in 1982,
Gajowniczek was present at the ceremony.
For the remainder of his life (he died in 1995), Franciszek Gajowniczek
spoke to groups of people around the world about the gift of life he received
because of the love of God and the love of Fr. Kolbe for a complete stranger.
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| Gajowniczek in 1982 |
Father Kolbe once wrote “In this world, Modern times are
dominated by Satan and will be more so in the future. The conflict with hell cannot be engaged by
men, not even the most clever.”
Sometimes evil must be confronted with words and force if
necessary. That is the right thing to do
and under certain conditions even the Christian thing to do. But there are times when evil confront us
individually with such great force we are powerless to fight it. By accepting and enduring the onslaught of
evil against us, we have not succumbed at all, but, like Christ and Maximilian
Kolbe, we have overcome evil with good.
Kolbe was declared by Pope John Paul II (himself a fellow
Pole who suffered under the Nazi occupation) the patron saint of “our difficult
century.” Flowers are placed next to the
starvation bunker in Auschwitz by an unknown patron each week. He is remembered in the Catholic Church
worldwide on August 15th.
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| Pope Benedict prays in Kolbe's cell |
Sources
Adels, Jill Haak. The Wisdom of the Saints : An Anthology.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987)
“Maximilian Kolbe” Butler’s Lives of the Saints. Bernard Bangley Ed. (Brewster : Paraclete
Press, 2005)
“Maximilian Maria Kolbe”
Dictionary of Christian Biography.
Michael Walsh Ed. (Collegeville : The Liturgical Press, 2001)
Saint of the Day. Leonard Foley O.F.M. Ed.
Revised Pat McCloskey O.F.M.
(Cincinnati : St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2001)
The Oxford University
History of the Twentieth Century.
Michael Howard and Wm. Roger Louis Eds.
(New York : Oxford University Press, 1998)
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