St. Maximilian Kolbe

Biography

St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe (1894–1941) was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar who gave his life in an act of supreme charity. Before the war, he was already remarkable: he founded the Militia Immaculata movement, established a major Catholic publishing operation at Niepokalanów (the largest religious community in the world at the time), and created a similar mission in Nagasaki, Japan. When Poland was invaded in 1939, he sheltered thousands of refugees, including over 2,000 Jews. He was arrested by the Gestapo in February 1941 and sent to Auschwitz. In July, after a prisoner escaped from his block, the SS selected ten men to die by starvation as a deterrent. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out for his wife and children, Kolbe stepped forward and volunteered to take his place. The commandant, stunned, agreed. For two weeks in the starvation bunker, Kolbe led the men in prayer, hymns, and the Rosary. He was the last to survive and was finally killed by lethal injection of carbolic acid on August 14, 1941. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1982. Gajowniczek, the man whose life he saved, was present at the canonization Mass and lived until 1995.

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