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Death-Camp Saint Some time ago, I was "out of service" for a day or so after having some minor surgery. While convalescing, I strayed onto a Jerry Springer type, smut-serving TV show on which a revolting and obscene young neo-Nazi Skinhead, with a tattoo of a swastika on each earlobe and two brilliant ones on his clean-shaven head, claimed that the Holocaust was a farce - that it never really happened. All I could think of was that this white supremacist was lucky that he hadn't been an inmate in Auschwitz or Dachau or his skin would probably have been recycled into a lampshade for the Commandant's office. That chilling thought was followed by one which was less base and much more worthy of contemplation - how, in such a monstrous, inhuman and horrid death-camp environment, could sanctity take root and blossom? And yet it did when Maximilian Mary Kolbe became the Church's first martyr to die, not for his religion, but for his charity. Maximilian Kolbe was born on January 8, 1894 in Zdunska-Wola, in Russian-occupied Poland. He was the second son of devout and poor parents who had a particular and intense devotion to The Virgin Mary. At the age of 12, Maximilian, already proficient in virtue, claimed an apparition of the Blessed Virgin holding two crowns: one white, which represented purity, and the other red, which represented martyrdom. She asked him which of the crowns he was willing to accept; he accepted both. The next year, Maximilian and his brother entered a junior Franciscan seminary in Lwow, where he excelled scholastically; in 1910, he entered the Franciscan Order. He studied in Rome until 1918, when he was ordained. Six months previous to his ordination, Maximilian, and six companions, founded the Crusade of Mary Immaculate (Militia Immaculate) with the aim of converting sinners, heretics and schematics and bringing all peoples to love Mary Immaculate. The Militia became a worldwide evangelistic movement which encouraged a total consecration to the Blessed Virgin as a means of spiritual renewal for all. Unfortunately, as he entered what was to be the most creative period of his life, Maximilian was stricken with tuberculosis, the life-draining illness which plagued him for the rest of his years. Regardless of the ailment, Maximilian forged ahead and founded The Knight of Mary Immaculate, a magazine for Christian readers whose circulation quickly zoomed. The indefatigable friar then founded Niepokalanow (City of the Immaculate) a self-supporting Franciscan community west of Warsaw. The "city" grew from a few shacks with tar-paper roofs into more permanent structures which housed a major seminary, a mission house, a printing establishment and a radio station. The successful production of a daily Catholic newspaper, called The Little Daily, became Maximilian's next accomplishment. By this time, this creative genius had developed into an early Christian multi-media mogul. In 1930, Father Maximilian and four friars heeded the call of the Holy Father to aid missionary efforts and went to Nagasaki, Japan and founded another city of the Immaculate, Mugenzai No Sono. There, he founded a novitiate, a junior seminary and continued to publish his beloved magazine. When Mugenzai No Sono was firmly established, he traveled to Malabar, India, where he furthered the Immaculata movement. In 1936, Maximilian returned home because of ill health and was appointed the superior of the original Niepokalanow. Three years later, the Nazi forces moved into Poland. Father Maximilian and many of the friars were arrested and jailed. Two months later they were released and they returned to Niepokalanow, which became a refugee camp for thousands who were seeking escape from Nazi persecution. The camp came under the suspicion of the Gestapo and in 1941, when Maximilian published an article critical of the Third Reich; he was arrested on charges of aiding Jews and the Polish underground. He was interned at the infamous Pawiak prison in German-occupied Warsaw, where he was singled out for special ill-treatment. Shortly thereafter, Father Maximilian and four companions were deported to Auschwitz, which was then both a labor and a death camp. On arrival, they were told that the only way out of the camp was through the chimneys of the camp crematorium. For the next several months, Maximilian, whose Franciscan habit was taken away, was garbed in striped convict's garments, branded with the number 16670 and, despite his weakened physical condition, pressed into hard labor. Father Maximilian continued his priestly ministry, smuggling in bread and wine for the Eucharist. Men gathered in secret to hear his words of love and encouragement. By camp law, if anyone attempted to escape, ten men from the same bunker would be selected for death by starvation in a windowless, underground bunker. Near the end of July, 1941,a prisoner apparently escaped and men from Kolbe's bunker were called together for the selection of the deadly ten. One of the selectees, Francis Gajowniczek, tearfully and hysterically begged the camp commandant to be spared, since he had a wife and children. Number 16670 came forward, identified himself to the Commandant as a Polish Catholic priest and requested that he be allowed to take Gajowniczek's place. The Commandant, more interested in numbers than in people, allowed the exchange and the ten doomed men were led off to the airless, underground cells where they were to die of slow starvation. In the death bunker, the condemned, led by Father Maximilian, said the rosary, recited psalms and sang hymns as one by one, all but Father Maximilian and three others, succumbed. On the tenth day, Maximilian and the few survivors were given lethal injections and, within hours, all had "escaped" through the chimneys of the camp crematorium. News of Father Kolbe's sacrifice spread far and wide. After the war, newspapers all over the world published articles about this "saint for our times" and many claims of cures through his intercession were reported. Requests for his beatification became insistent. When his cause was taken up by the Vatican Congregation, Kolbe had two verified miracles of healing to his credit. When Pope Paul VI beatified Father Kolbe in 1971, he told a Polish delegation that Kolbe was "a Saint Francis who came alive in our time" and that he could be considered a "martyr of charity." However, "martyr of charity" had no theological or canonical standing; therefore, strictly speaking, Kolbe could not be venerated as a martyr. Later, Pope John Paul II was well-disposed toward canonizing his compatriot a martyr, but whether he qualified to be a martyr had to be fully discussed. The Pope convened a special twenty-five-member commission to review the evidence and the arguments. The overwhelming majority of the commissioners voted that Kolbe's heroic gesture did not meet the criteria necessary for a martyr of the faith. But their judgment was merely advisory. On October 10, 1982, before 250,000 faithful at St. Peter's Basilica (which included Francis Gajowniczek, the man for whom Maximilian gave his life to save), John Paul II recalled the words from the Gospel of John, "There is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends." Then he proclaimed that Maximilian Maria Kolbe, who, after his beatification was venerated as a Confessor, would henceforth also be venerated as a Martyr - the two choices of purity and martyrdom which Maximilian had made to the Virgin Mary when she appeared to him at the age of twelve, were thereby completed. Clem can be reached at DeAmicis@pacbell.net Italian Catholic Federation, 8393 Capwell Drive, Suite 110, Oakland CA 94621 tel: 888/ICF-1924; 510/633-9058; fax: 510/633-9758; Email: info@icf.org Website designed by HYPERSPHERE