On July 30, 1941, a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz, the notorious Nazi camp in Poland. In retaliation, the commandant lined up inmates of Cell Block Fourteen and ordered that ten of them be selected for death. When one of the ten cried out that he would never see his family again, another prisoner stepped forward and volunteered to take his place. When the commandant asked who he was, he replied, “I am a Catholic priest.” His offer was accepted, and so Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan, assumed his place among the condemned.
Kolbe and the other prisoners were locked in a death bunker with nothing to consume but their own urine. He passed the time leading his companions in prayer, preparing them for death, and keeping vigil with them as they gradually succumbed. When, after two weeks, Kolbe and three others were still alive, the Nazis dispatched them with injections of carbolic acid.
In 1982 Pope John Paul II, who as bishop of Krakow had often prayed at the scene of Kolbe’s death, presided over his canonization in Rome. Present for the ceremony was the man whose life Kolbe had saved. The pope called Kolbe a true martyr and saint for our times whose heroic charity proved victorious over the architects of death. He cited the words from the Gospel of John: “Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.”
“These Nazis will not kill our souls, since we prisoners certainly distinguish ourselves quite definitely from our tormentors; they will not be able to deprive us of the dignity of Catholic belief. We will not give up. And when we die, then we die pure and peaceful, resigned to God in our hearts.” —St. Maximilian Kolbe
