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Saint Maxmilian Kolbe - Martyr of Auschwitz

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Auschwitz - Roll Call of Hell

On May the 28th, 1941, Father Maxmilian, although suffering seriously from tuberculosis, was transported along with 320 other prisoners, to Auschwitz. He was treated no better because he was a Religious. Rather, they were harsher on the Religious, taking some kind of delight, determining how much torture they could take before cracking.

Father Maxmilian was given a number, 16670; he was assigned to block 17. The guards pushed, kicked and beat Father when he was too ill to walk. He struggled, as he tried to haul the wheel barrels full of gravel, they needed to build the crematorium walls. Oh, they were not past using prisoners to build their own means of torture or death. No matter how they brutalized him, how they tried to humiliate him, the could not force Father into hating them. He had so much love in his eyes, they made him lower his eyes so they wouldn't have to look into them.

Auschwitz or the Death Camp, as it was more commonly called, was originally to be for the extermination of Jews. Then, the Third Reich added to their Martyred number: the Danish, French, Greek, Spanish, Flemish, Yugoslavian, German, Norwegian, Russian, Rumanian, Hungarian, Italian and Polish undesirables, whose only crime was they were leaders or intellectuals.

Although its horror was not singularly its own, it had the reputation of being the most efficient of all the concentration camps, building up to a record of exterminating 3500 enemies of the state in 24 hours. They became so good at their job, the sign above the entrance gate reading "Work makes one free," they were capable of killing prisoners on arrival. Many they did; others they saved for slave labor; others they had fun with; their action: to degrade, to see how low they could make a human stoop with enough torture.

I think, the saddest testimony I ever heard was from a survivor of the concentration camps. He told how parents would have their children go before them, into the showers (the Nazis jokingly called the gas chambers), so they would not be frightened, the parents reassuring them, it was all right, they would be following.

A fellow prisoner testified that nothing they did to Father Maxmilian could break his spirit. He would lift up the other victims, repeating: "No, No, these Nazis will not kill our souls, since we prisoners distinguish ourselves quite definitely from our tormentors; they will not be able to deprive us of the dignity of our Catholic belief. We will not give up. And when we die, then we die pure and peaceful, resigned to God in our hearts."

He infuriated the Nazis as he worked to keep the Poles and the European Jews from being reduced into groveling animals, turning on each other. To punish him, the guards would save the most demeaning work for him. At one time, they even set their vicious dogs on him. They used Father to carry corpses to the crematorium. A former prisoner testified: one time, when he (the prisoner) was asked to carry a young man's horribly ravaged body, his ripped open stomach, evidence of just part of the torture he'd suffered before dying, he was so repulsed by the sight, he did not have the strength or the stomach to lift him. Then he heard a gentle voice, hardly above a whisper: "Let us take him." As they carried the young man to the crematorium, he could hear the prisoner helping him, "Holy Mary, pray for us." Father Maxmilian was calling to his Mother, and as She did with Her Son Jesus as He carried His Cross, Her eyes sustained him. One day, Father fell under the weight of the wood he was carrying. Face down, in the mud, unable to get up, the picture I see before me is, again, the one of Jesus on the way of the Cross, when He fell the third time. Was that the picture before Father Maxmilian? Was that how he was able to get up? With his last ounce of strength, each day, he carried his sufferings, taking on the sins of his jailers upon his wounded body, as his Jesus before him. He said over and over again: "For Jesus Christ, I am prepared to suffer still more."

When he left the hospital, he was assigned to Cell Block 14. A prisoner escaped! The shrill sound of the alarm pierced the still, dark night. The prisoners lay frozen, praying they would not be part of those chosen to be executed. According to the barbaric law of the camp, when one inmate escaped, ten men from his cell were chosen to starve to death, in the underground bunker. They rounded up all the prisoners and had them stand at attention, for three hours, in the prison yard. Then, they marched them in to have their meager supper, all that is but the men of block 14! Instead, they were forced to helplessly look by, as their rations were dumped into the canal.

The next day, they were lined up in the scorching sun, as the rest of the prisoners went off to work. They were given nothing to drink or eat. Their condition became so unbearable, many of them collapsed and not even the guards' brutal beatings could arouse them. They just dumped them, one on top of another, in a heap.

As night approached, the rest of the prisoners came back. They were lined up, facing those of block 14, so they could witness what happens when someone escapes. And then, the dreaded announcement: "Since the fugitive has not been found, ten of you are condemned to death." Commander Fritsch took delight as he passed back and forth, before the prisoners of block 14. He could see the fear in their eyes; he could read their minds, Oh God, don't let it be me.

"Good-by, friends; we will meet again where there is justice," was joined by another sobbing, "Long live Poland!" "Good-by! Good-by, my dear wife; good-by, my dear children, already orphans of your father," cried out Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek.

A prisoner from block 14 stepped out of the lineup. It was Father Maxmilian! He had been assigned to block 14, had endured all the torture and was still standing. He walked slowly and calmly toward the commandant. He stopped in front of Fritsch. The sight was blinding! There was a hush that went through the men lined up. No one, in the history of the camp, had ever done anything like this before.

They stared; they tried to take their eyes away, but they couldn't or wouldn't. Suddenly they were not afraid of this man who reduced men to animals; he no longer posed a threat. The man before him, chest caved in, little more than hanging flesh on thin bones, had the upper hand. The commander was stunned, frozen. Was he afraid at what or Who it was, he saw? Did he remember from a thousand lifetimes ago, his mother telling him about the Savior who gave His life for him?

The commander found his voice; regaining his composure, he barked, "What does this Polish pig want?" Father Maxmilian, pointing toward Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek, answered:

"I am a Polish Catholic Priest; I am old; I want to take his place because he has a wife and children..."

Father Maxmilian was 47 years old!

The underground bunker, block 11, was a chamber of horror. It was closed in by a wall twenty-one feet high; prisoners were to have no communication from the outside. Upon entering, inmates knew they would only leave as corpses, on their way to the crematorium. Only a few Poles came in any kind of contact with the bunker, those who the Nazis needed, to carry out bodies and etc. This is how we have any idea of what went on. They led Father and the other nine to bunker 11. They stripped them of all their clothing and left them, sneering, "We will dry you up like tulips!" A Pole later testified: when they went down to the bunkers, it sounded as if the Angels were accompanying the prisoners singing hymns to Jesus and Mary.

At the end of the third week, there were four left; Father Maxmilian was one of them! So, needing the bunker for more prisoners, they called in the director of the hall of the sick, the infamous and wicked Boch. He lifted the arms of the prisoners left. As they looked up at him, helplessly, he injected them with poisonous acid.

Father Maxmilian died on the vigil of the Feast of the Assumption of our and his Lady into Heaven. Witnesses testified when they saw him, he was shrouded in a flood of light, almost transfigured. It was Friday, August the 15th; men came for his body and placed it in a box. It was taken to the ovens.

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