God’s commandments are not burdensome. (I John 5:3) Apostle John taught that giving life for someone is a demonstration of love to other humans. (I John 3:16)
Auschwitz: This was a dangerous place of death. Millions were massacred, tortured, gassed to death, starved, and killed. Germany under Hitler became a nation where humans were killed in concentration camps for no reason. None of them deserved death.
Roll Call for death: In July 1941, one prisoner had escaped from Barrack 14. Nazi prison law was that for every prisoner who escaped, ten prisoners from that barrack would be executed. The officer H. Karl Fritzsch walks the line, chooses, and points randomly. Each person knew that they would be sent to the starvation bunker, no food, and a slow death.
Prisoner 5659: The tenth man was Franciszek Gajowniczek, a Polish army sergeant who joined the resistance against Hitler. The forty-year-old cried: “My wife, my sons.”
Prisoner 16670: A thin old man stepped forward and said, “I am a Catholic priest. I am old. I have no wife or children. I want to die in place of this man.” The officers were stunned. Nevertheless, the officer said, “Request granted.” Father Maximilian Kolbe, stepped into the line and he died on 14 August 1941.
Bold witness: Maximilian Kolbe was born in Poland in 1894 and became a priest at 20. In the 1920-1930s, he was an activist who founded a massive Catholic publishing house for religious literature. He started newspapers, magazines, and radio, and was reaching millions of Polish Catholics. When the Nazis invaded Poland, he refused to stop publishing, gave protection to Jews, and continued to preach. He was arrested and put in prison, where he helped prisoners, prayed with them, and heard confessions, which was illegal. Now, he demonstrated his teachings by stepping into the line of death.
Gift of life: Franciszek Gajowniczek lived for 53 years and was always grateful to Kolbe. He saw his grandsons, too. Kolbe was beautified (1971) and canonized (1982) by the Church.
Am I willing to die for others?