On this day, 84 years ago on August 14th 1941, Polish Catholic Priest Maximilian Kolbe is executed by lethal injection at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

On February 17th 1941, he was arrested by the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison. On May 25th, he was transferred to Auschwitz I as prisoner #16670.

In July 1941, a man from Kolbe’s barracks vanished, prompting ϟϟ-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick 10 men from the same barracks to be starved to death in Block 13 (notorious for torture) to deter further escape attempt (the man who had disappeared was later found drowned in the camp latrine). One of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, lamenting his family, and Kolbe volunteered to take his place.

During the time in the cell, he led the men in songs and prayer. After three weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe and three others were still alive. Finally, he was executed with an injection of carbolic acid on August 14, 1941.

He was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Maximilian Kolbe on October 10th 1982, by Pope John Paul II, and declared a martyr of charity. He is the patron saint of drug addicts, political prisoners, families, journalists, prisoners and the pro-life movement. Pope John Paul II declared him the “The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century.”

Father Kolbe was beatified as a confessor by Pope Paul VI in 1971 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 10th 1982 in the presence of Franciszek Gajowniczek. Upon canonization, the Pope declared St. Maximilian Kolbe is not a confessor, but a martyr.

Although the canonisation of St. Maximilan Kolbe is uncontroversial, his recognition as a martyr is, given that a Christian martyr is one who is killed in odium Fidei, and Kolbe wasn’t assassinated strictly out of hatred for his faith.



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