Father Maximilian Kolbe, was a Polish Catholic priest who, in 1941, volunteered to die in place of a man named Franciszek Gajowniczek in the German death camp of Auschwitz.

Besides his work as a priest, Father Kolbe worked as a journalist and à radio operator. He was a man of kindness and patience, tolerant of the people surrounding him, and always ready to forgive even those who – just like German officers – treated him with extreme brutality.

Once sent to the German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, he did a lot of physical labour, which, like most inmates, degraded his health to near death from exhaustion.

Father Kolbe is mostly known for one act of particular bravery. On the 29th of August 1941, 10 Polish inmates were sentenced to death from starvation. This was when Kolbe asked the permission of the German capo in charge of the selection if he could take the place of one of the inmates, knowing that the latter has a wife and two children.

After two weeks of starvation in a hunger bunker, only Kolbe remained alive so eventually, he was murdered by a lethal injection of carbolic acid on the 14th of August 1941.  

In turn, Franciszek Gajowniczek survived the war. He died on the 13th of March 1995 at the age of 93. Every year, on the 14th of August, he used to travel back to Auschwitz to pay tribute to the man who gave his life for him. He did so for half a century. 

On the 10th of October 1982, Pope John Paul II canonised Father Kolbe and declared him a martyr of charity. The Catholic Church venerates him as the patron saint of journalists, amateur radio operators, drug addicts, families, and political prisoners. 

Image: IPN

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen