St. Maximilian Kolbe: Remembering a Catholic Priest who willingly gave his life at Auschwitz so another man could live

Today is the feast day of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Catholic Priest who gave up his life in exchange for another prison in Auschwitz in 1941.

His story is especially moving:

In case you don’t have time to watch the video of his story, I’ll give you the short version.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was arrested by the Nazis in 1941 and taken to Auschwitz. While in prison there, he was able to provide confession for his fellow prisoners and even held a Mass with smuggled bread.

The Nazis had a rule that if a man escaped the prison camp, ten men would be killed as punishment. And as it would happen, a man did escape from their section of the prison camp. Nazi soldiers, furious, took 10 men out to put into the starvation chambers. But one man named Francisek Gajowniczek, who was imprisoned for helping the Polish resistance, sobbed aloud for his wife and children.

St. Maximilian Kolbe then stepped up and told the soldiers he was a Catholic Priest and to take him instead of Gajowniczek. The soldier, baffled at first, agreed to the exchange and took Kolbe along with the other nine to the starvation chambers. After two weeks, Kolbe was the only one still conscious of four prisoners still alive, and they were then injected with carbolic acid and all killed on August 14, 1941.

Gajowniczek, the man who Kolbe gave his life for, lived a long life and eventually died in 1995 in Poland.

St. Maxilmilian Kolbe, pray for us!


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