Italian
This serves to remind us, just as the action of Maximilian Kolbe reminds us that even in a place as inhumane as a Nazi concentration camp, one can proclaim their humanity with an act of love.
A love that scandalizes in the face of so much evil.
Yet he was an ordinary man. He was born into a family of modest means in a Polish area under Russian control. His father Julius Kolbe, a German, was a weaver and his Polish mother Maria Dąbrowska was a midwife. He had four brothers.
At thirteen, he began attending the Franciscan middle school in Lviv. His life changed radically in 1906 when he recalled the vision of the Virgin Mary he had in childhood. Thus, he was already predestined for holiness.
On September 4, 1910, he donned the habit of the Order of Conventual Franciscan Friars as a novice, taking the name Maximilian. The following year, on September 5, 1911, he made his simple profession and was sent to Krakow and later to Rome to continue his studies in philosophy and theology.
In 1914 he made his perpetual vows.
During his formative years, Maximilian Kolbe, favored by a very sociable character, easily managed to create friendships with most of his seminary classmates, including Ladislaus Dubaniowski and Bronislaus Stryczny. According to the latter, who, like Kolbe, experienced internment in Nazi extermination camps, surviving imprisonment in the Dachau camp, Maximilian stood out in college for his commitment and work ethic.
Kolbe during his seminary years was also driven by a strong optimism (“Next time it will go better”, he would repeat in front of problems) and by a remarkable intensity in religious practice, particularly in the recitation of the rosary and in the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
He then returned to Poland, where particularly in the convent of Niepokalanow, in Poland, on the eve of the world conflict, about a thousand people lived there, including professed friars, novices, and seminarians. It was one of the largest Catholic convents in the world, and it was almost an autonomous city. In the early years of the war, it provided shelter to numerous Polish refugees, including many Jews.
And it was precisely because of his great devotion to Mary that he often began with this phrase during that time: “Whoever has Mary as Mother, has Christ as Brother.”
He later had an experience as a missionary in Japan, despite a body weakened by tuberculosis, which he had contracted during his studies in Rome.
In 1932 he traveled to India to assess the possibility of establishing a new mission, but after a short stay, in 1936 Kolbe permanently left Japan, returning to Poland.
Here in 1938 he obtained his amateur radio license and was active for several years with the call sign SP3RN, and therefore he is still today the patron saint of radio amateurs around the world. However, events in Europe took a turn for the worse. Poland was occupied by the Nazis and Kolbe was arrested by German troops on September 19, 1939, along with 37 other confreres. After almost three months in prison, Kolbe was released.
Returned to Niepokalanow, he found it bombed and soon transformed it into a hospital and shelter for thousands of refugees. However, his freedom did not last long. On February 17, 1941, Kolbe was arrested again and definitively by the Gestapo.
On May 28, 1941, Kolbe arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was registered with the number 16670 and was assigned to humiliating tasks such as transporting corpses. He was beaten several times, but he did not give up showing solidarity with his fellow prisoners. Despite it being forbidden, Kolbe secretly celebrated Mass twice and continued his commitment as a priest.
At the end of July of the same year, he was transferred to the Block 14 and employed in the harvesting work. The escape of one of the prisoners caused a reprisal by the Nazis, who selected ten people from the same barrack to be killed in the so-called hunger bunker.
One of them burst into tears saying he had a family at home waiting for him: Kolbe then stepped out of the ranks of prisoners and offered to die in his place. In a completely unexpected turn, the exchange was granted: the concentration camps were indeed designed to break every emotional bond and gestures of solidarity were not welcomed.
Kolbe was then locked in the bunker of Block 11. After two weeks of agony without water or food, the majority of the condemned had died of starvation, but four of them, including Kolbe, were still alive and continued to pray and sing hymns to Mary. The calmness exhibited by the priest impressed the SS guards, for whom witnessing this agony was shocking. Kolbe and his companions were then killed on August 14, 1941, the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, with an injection of carbolic acid. Their bodies were cremated the following day and the ashes scattered.
According to the testimony of the man he saved, Father Kolbe said to Hans Bock, the common criminal appointed as the block leader of the inmates’ infirmary, tasked with administering the lethal injection in his arm: “You have understood nothing about life…” and as he looked at him with a questioning expression, he added: “…hatred is useless… Only love creates!”. His last words, extending his arm, were: Ave Maria.
It was the same Nazi medical lieutenant who recounted this fact years later, which was recorded in the documents of the canonization process. The expression “Only love creates” was recalled several times by Paul VI in 1971 on the occasion of Kolbe’s beatification. His canonization took place in 1982 by John Paul II.
Father Kolbe, a man against the tide, yet with a single certainty, one that should become the leitmotif of humanity: only love creates.
his sacrifice included in one of the dramas of the 20th century
This saint, celebrated today on August 14, lived a low-profile life until one day, in one of the extreme situations faced by human beings during World War II, a Nazi concentration camp, and what a camp, Auschwitz, he chose to give his life in place of that of a family man, putting into practice the words of Jesus “No one has greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Gospel of John 15:13), creating that “scandal” that today is also remembered by the stumbling stones that pave the thresholds of small and large cities throughout Europe.
We remember that this form of art was invented by the German artist Gunter Demning. They are small brass plaques the size of a cobblestone (about 10 x 10 cm) placed in the ground in front of the door of the house where a victim of Nazism lived, the place where they were imprisoned; on it are the names of the person, the date of birth, the possible place of deportation, and the date of death, if known.
This serves to remind us, just as the action of Maximilian Kolbe reminds us that even in a place as inhumane as a Nazi concentration camp, one can proclaim their humanity with an act of love.
A love that scandalizes in the face of so much evil.
Yet he was an ordinary man. He was born into a family of modest means in a Polish area under Russian control. His father Julius Kolbe, a German, was a weaver and his Polish mother Maria Dąbrowska was a midwife. He had four brothers.
At thirteen, he began attending the Franciscan middle school in Lviv. His life changed radically in 1906 when he recalled the vision of the Virgin Mary he had in childhood. Thus, he was already predestined for holiness.
On September 4, 1910, he donned the habit of the Order of Conventual Franciscan Friars as a novice, taking the name Maximilian. The following year, on September 5, 1911, he made his simple profession and was sent to Krakow and later to Rome to continue his studies in philosophy and theology.
In 1914 he made his perpetual vows.
During his formative years, Maximilian Kolbe, favored by a very sociable character, easily managed to create friendships with most of his seminary classmates, including Ladislaus Dubaniowski and Bronislaus Stryczny. According to the latter, who, like Kolbe, experienced internment in Nazi extermination camps, surviving imprisonment in the Dachau camp, Maximilian stood out in college for his commitment and work ethic.
Kolbe during his seminary years was also driven by a strong optimism (“Next time it will go better”, he would repeat in front of problems) and by a remarkable intensity in religious practice, particularly in the recitation of the rosary and in the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
He then returned to Poland, where particularly in the convent of Niepokalanow, in Poland, on the eve of the world conflict, about a thousand people lived there, including professed friars, novices, and seminarians. It was one of the largest Catholic convents in the world, and it was almost an autonomous city. In the early years of the war, it provided shelter to numerous Polish refugees, including many Jews.
And it was precisely because of his great devotion to Mary that he often began with this phrase during that time: “Whoever has Mary as Mother, has Christ as Brother.”
He later had an experience as a missionary in Japan, despite a body weakened by tuberculosis, which he had contracted during his studies in Rome.
In 1932 he traveled to India to assess the possibility of establishing a new mission, but after a short stay, in 1936 Kolbe permanently left Japan, returning to Poland.
Here in 1938 he obtained his amateur radio license and was active for several years with the call sign SP3RN, and therefore he is still today the patron saint of radio amateurs around the world. However, events in Europe took a turn for the worse. Poland was occupied by the Nazis and Kolbe was arrested by German troops on September 19, 1939, along with 37 other confreres. After almost three months in prison, Kolbe was released.
Returned to Niepokalanow, he found it bombed and soon transformed it into a hospital and shelter for thousands of refugees. However, his freedom did not last long. On February 17, 1941, Kolbe was arrested again and definitively by the Gestapo.
On May 28, 1941, Kolbe arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was registered with the number 16670 and was assigned to humiliating tasks such as transporting corpses. He was beaten several times, but he did not give up showing solidarity with his fellow prisoners. Despite it being forbidden, Kolbe secretly celebrated Mass twice and continued his commitment as a priest.
At the end of July of the same year, he was transferred to the Block 14 and employed in the harvesting work. The escape of one of the prisoners caused a reprisal by the Nazis, who selected ten people from the same barrack to be killed in the so-called hunger bunker.
One of them burst into tears saying he had a family at home waiting for him: Kolbe then stepped out of the ranks of prisoners and offered to die in his place. In a completely unexpected turn, the exchange was granted: the concentration camps were indeed designed to break every emotional bond and gestures of solidarity were not welcomed.
Kolbe was then locked in the bunker of Block 11. After two weeks of agony without water or food, the majority of the condemned had died of starvation, but four of them, including Kolbe, were still alive and continued to pray and sing hymns to Mary. The calmness exhibited by the priest impressed the SS guards, for whom witnessing this agony was shocking. Kolbe and his companions were then killed on August 14, 1941, the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, with an injection of carbolic acid. Their bodies were cremated the following day and the ashes scattered.
According to the testimony of the man he saved, Father Kolbe said to Hans Bock, the common criminal appointed as the block leader of the inmates’ infirmary, tasked with administering the lethal injection in his arm: “You have understood nothing about life…” and as he looked at him with a questioning expression, he added: “…hatred is useless… Only love creates!”. His last words, extending his arm, were: Ave Maria.
It was the same Nazi medical lieutenant who recounted this fact years later, which was recorded in the documents of the canonization process. The expression “Only love creates” was recalled several times by Paul VI in 1971 on the occasion of Kolbe’s beatification. His canonization took place in 1982 by John Paul II.
Father Kolbe, a man against the tide, yet with a single certainty, one that should become the leitmotif of humanity: only love creates.
