May 28, 1941 - Maximilian Kolbe Sent to Auschwitz

St. Maximilian Kolbe (1894–1941), public domain photograph via Wikimedia Commons.

Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan priest, founding a large monastery called Niepokalanów in Poland in 1936. This would become one of the largest religious communities in the world. Kolbe used publishing, including a magazine, in order to spread Christian teaching before World War II. Three years later, when the Nazis invaded Poland, he knew that the German authorities would inevitably find and capture him. On May 28, 1941, he was arrested by the Nazis for harboring Jewish refugees and resisting Nazi ideology. He was sent to Auschwitz, one of the most notorious concentration camps, where he continued sharing the Gospel. Some of the inmates at Auschwitz attempted an escape while he was there, and after they were caught and executed, the camp leaders selected ten random men to be starved to show the inmates what happened to those who tried to escape. One of these men was Franciszek Gajowniczek, yet Kolbe volunteered to take his place. He was starved and then killed by lethal injection. Gajowniczek survived the war and told Kolbe’s story. Because of Kolbe’s selfless sacrifice, Pope John Paul II made Father Kolbe a saint in 1982, calling him a “martyr of charity.”

Kolbe’s life displayed John 15:13, demonstrating what it looks like to lay down one’s life for a friend. His life was a beautiful example of self-sacrificial love in action and shows that faith can remain strong even in the face of extreme persecution and suffering. This challenges modern believers to consider what it means to put others before themselves. By reflecting on Kolbe’s story, believers see that even in the darkest of circumstances, God uses personal faith to have a profound impact.