Monday, 14 August 2017

Maximilian Kolbe was a polish priest who died in Auschwitz concentration Camp on 14 August 1941.

In February of 1941 he was arrested on charges of aiding Jews and the Polish Resistance. He was imprisoned at Warsaw and then shipped to Auschwitz, where he volunteered his life in the place of the condemned inmate Franciszek Gajowniczek. First starved, he was finally injected with phenol and cremated.

In 1971, Kolbe was beatified by Pope Paul VI, the first Nazi victim to be proclaimed blessed by the Roman Catholic church. In 1982 Pope John Paul II canonized him, proclaiming also that he was to be venerated as a martyr.

In the classroom: Learn more about Auschwitz