Maximilian of Auschwitz

Raymond Kolbe was born of poor parents in Poland in 1894. He came to love the Blessed Virgin quite early in life, but this  devotion did not prevent him from getting into trouble! His lively nature tried the patience of his mother; once she remarked in exasperation, “Raymond, what is going to become of you?”

After this incident there was a noticeable change in his behaviour. His mother became worried, he was behaving! He was thoughtful! He did as he was told!

Questioning him, she found Raymond at first reluctant to tell her his “secret.”

Finally he told her how much her reproach had troubled him. He had asked Our Lady for help, and asked her the same question, “Mother of God, what will become of me?”

She appeared to him, holding in her hands two crowns, one white, the other red.

She asked Raymond which one he would choose; the white signified purity, the red martyrdom. “I choose both” he answered.

As a young man, he joined the Conventual Franciscan Friars and received the religious name Maximilian. Ordained priest in 1918, Fr. Maximilian began his

“press apostolate” missionary activity in Poland, and eventually set up a mission close to Nagasaki, Japan. Suffering from tuberculosis, he returned in 1936 to Poland

and spent himself for the spiritual and apostolic development of Niepokalanów which had become the most prominent Catholic publishing house in Poland.

In 1939, when World War II broke out, Niepokalanów, damaged by bombs,

was used as a hospital and refuge for thousands of refugees, including Jews.

Maximilian continued his press apostolate until February 17, 1941, when he was arrested and imprisoned by the Nazis in Pawiak prison, near Warsaw.  His crime? Offering shelter to Jews and members of the Polish underground at his monastery.

The priest had long been a thorn in the side of the Nazi regime. Through his religious publications and missionary work, he had spoken out against the rising tide of hatred sweeping across Europe.

On May 28, 1941, Kolbe arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was branded with the number 16670. Eyewitnesses say that even inside the camp's barbed wire fences, Kolbe remained steadfast in his vocation. He secretly heard confessions, prayed with fellow inmates, and gave away his food rations to those in greater need. “He brought peace to us,” one survivor later recalled. “We were starving, beaten, and dying. He made us feel human again.”

One of the chosen, cried out in anguish, lamenting his wife and children, who would be left behind. In a move that stunned even the SS guards, Kolbe stepped forward.

“I am a Catholic priest. I want to die for that man,” he said.

The request was granted.

On August 14, 1941, a camp guard entered the cell to administer a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Kolbe, weak and emaciated, reportedly raised his left arm in acceptance. He died at age 47, and his body was cremated the next day

on the Feast of the Assumption.

The man whose life Kolbe saved, survived Auschwitz, and spent the rest

of his life telling the story of the priest who had taken his place. 

 Franciszek Gajowniczek was a Polish army sergeant and family man with a wife, Helena, and two sons. He was present in 1971 when Pope Paul VI beatified Kolbe,

calling him a confessor of the faith. He was also at the Vatican on October 10, 1982,

when Pope John Paul II canonized Kolbe as a martyr of charity.

“Maximilian did not die merely as a result of hatred,” Pope John Paul II said during the ceremony. “He died because of love.”

O God, who filled the Priest and Martyr Saint Maximilian Kolbe

with a burning love for Thee and for Our Lady

with a zeal for souls and love of neighbour;

graciously grant, through his intercession,

that, striving for thy glory by eagerly serving others,

we may be conformed, even until death, to thy Son.

Who lives and reigns with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.