Maximillian Kolbe was born in 1894 at Zdunska Wola near Lodz in Poland. He was ordained in Rome in 1918 as a member of the Franciscan Order.

One of Fr. Kolbe’s earliest projects involved the production of Catholic newspapers. His first publication, the Knight of the Immaculate - reached a circulation height of 750,000.

In 1930 Fr. Kolbe left Poland with four brothers from the friary of Niepokalanow for Japan. They founded a Franciscan centre in Nagasaki which survived the atomic bomb blast in 1945 with merely a few broken panes of stained glass. In 1936 he was recalled to Poland and left Japan for the last time.

By September 1939 Niepokalanow had been occupied by the invading Germans and most of its inhabitants had been deported to Germany. Among them was Fr. Kolbe. However the exile did not last long and on the 8th December, the prisoners were set free. From the moment of Fr. Kolbe’s return to Niepokalanow he began to organise shelter for 3,000 refugees, among whom were 2,000 Jews. On th 17th of February, he was arrested and sent to the infamous Pawiak prison in Warsaw. Here he was singled out for special ill-treatment. On May 28th Fr, Kolbe and 300 others were deported from Pawiak prison to Auschwitz concentration camp. There he received his striped convict’s garments and was branded with the number 16670. He was put to work immediately carrying blocks of stone for the construction of a crematorium wall. Late in July 1941 3 prisoners escaped from Auschwitz, and as a consequence 10 prisoners were chosen to be starved to death as punishment. Fr. Kolbe stepped forward and volunteered his life in exchange for the life of one of the ten. Fr. Kolbe died after being injected with carbolic acid following several weeks of starvation without food or water.

On October 17, 1971, Maximillian Kolbe was beatified by Pope Paul VI. Eleven years later on the 10th of October 1982, Pope John Paul II celebrated the Mass of Canonisation in St. Peter’s Square before a vast assembly, including Conventual Friars from all over

© Précis of CTS Twentieth Century Martyrs Publication 0