• OUR LADY of CZĘSTOCHOWA: st Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionOUR LADY of CZĘSTOCHOWA
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
link to OUR LADY of PERPETUAL HELP in SŁOMCZYN infoSITE LOGO

Roman Catholic
St Sigismund parish
05-507 Słomczyn
85 Wiślana Str.
Konstancin deanery
Warsaw archdiocese, Poland

  • St SIGISMUND: St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionSt SIGISMUND
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
  • St SIGISMUND: XIX c., feretory, St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionSt SIGISMUND
    XIX c., feretory
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
  • St SIGISMUND: XIX c., feretory, St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionSt SIGISMUND
    XIX c., feretory
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
  • St SIGISMUND: XIX c., feretory, St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionSt SIGISMUND
    XIX c., feretory
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
  • St SIGISMUND: XIX c., feretory, St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland; source: own collectionSt SIGISMUND
    XIX c., feretory
    St Sigismund parish church, Słomczyn, Poland
    source: own collection
LINK to Nu HTML Checker

full list:

displayClick to display full list

wyświetlKliknij by wyświetlić pełną listę po polsku


Martyrology of the clergy — Poland

XX century (1914 – 1989)

personal data

review in:

po polskuKliknij by wyświetlić to bio po polsku

link do KARTY OSOBOWEJ - POLSKA WERSJAKliknij by wyświetlić to bio po polsku
  • BELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard, source: niedziela.pl, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOBELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard
    source: niedziela.pl
    own collection
  • BELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard; source: Fr Anastasius Nadolny, prof., „Biographical dictionary of priests ordained in the years 1921—1945 working in the Chełmno diocese”, Bernardinum publishing house 2021, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOBELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard
    source: Fr Anastasius Nadolny, prof., „Biographical dictionary of priests ordained in the years 1921—1945 working in the Chełmno diocese”, Bernardinum publishing house 2021
    own collection
  • BELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard, source: www.worldvitalrecords.com, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOBELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard
    source: www.worldvitalrecords.com
    own collection

religious status

Servant of God

surname

BELCZEWSKI

forename(s)

Victor Bernard (pl. Wiktor Bernard)

  • BELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard - Commemorative plaque, Assumption of the Virgin Mary parish church, Dźwierzno, source: www.youtube.com, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOBELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard
    Commemorative plaque, Assumption of the Virgin Mary parish church, Dźwierzno
    source: www.youtube.com
    own collection
  • BELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard - Commemorative plaque, St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist cathedral, Toruń, source: gdansk.ipn.gov.pl, own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOBELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard
    Commemorative plaque, St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist cathedral, Toruń
    source: gdansk.ipn.gov.pl
    own collection
  • BELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard - Commemorative plaque, porch, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven cathedral, Pelplin, source: own collection; CLICK TO ZOOM AND DISPLAY INFOBELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard
    Commemorative plaque, porch, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven cathedral, Pelplin
    source: own collection

function

diocesan priest

creed

Latin (Roman Catholic) Church RCmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]

diocese / province

Culm (Chełmno) diocesemore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2012.11.23]

date and place
of death

20.10.1939

Starogard Gdańskitoday: Starogard Gdański gm., Starogard Gdański pov., Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.07]

alt. dates and places
of death

11.1939

Szpęgawski foresttoday: Starogard Gdański gm., Starogard Gdański pov., Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2018.09.23]

Zajączek foresttoday: Skórcz gm., Starogard Gdański pov., Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.28]

details of death

After German invasion of Poland on 01.09.1939 (Russians invaded 17 days later) and start of the World War II left his parish and joined thousands of Polish escapees marching towards Warsaw.

Soon however, after start of German occupation, returned and knowing was wanted by the Germans in his parish settled at his brother's place in Lubichowo.

There arrested by the Germans on 15/16.10.1939, two day after arrest of local parish priest, Fr Alois Rapior, and vicar, Fr Casimir Schliep.

Interned in Lubichowo, next in IL Skurz temporary camp for Polish intelligentsia in Skórcz.

From there on 19.10.1939 — in a group of Poles, mainly teachers — moved to Starogard Gdański prison.

There tortured, when refused to repeat: „Führer ist unser Gott” („Führer is our God”).

There or in vicinity, on the next day, murdered.

alt. details of death

According to other sources murdered in one of the places of mass execution of Poles in 1939: Szpęgawsk forest (very likely) or Zajączek forest.

cause of death

mass murder

perpetrators

Germans

sites and events

Starogard GdańskiClick to display the description, Szpęgawski forestClick to display the description, Zajączek forestClick to display the description, IL SkurzClick to display the description, Starogard GdańskiClick to display the description, «Intelligenzaktion»Click to display the description, Reichsgau Danzig‐WestpreußenClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description

date and place
of birth

06.05.1912

Pazdatoday: Zblewo gm., Starogard Gdański pov., Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.28]

alt. dates and places
of birth

Lubichowotoday: Lubichowo gm., Starogard Gdański pov., Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.09.02]

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

04.06.1939 (Pelpin cathedralmore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.11.14]
)

positions held

1939

vicar — Dźwierznotoday: Chełmża gm., Toruń pov., Kuyavia‐Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.09.02]
⋄ Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary RC parish ⋄ Chełmżatoday: Chełmża urban gm., Toruń pov., Kuyavia‐Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.09.02]
RC deanery

1933 – 1939

student — Pelplintoday: Pelplin gm., Tczew pov., Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.05.06]
⋄ philosophy and theology, Theological Seminary

others related
in death

RAPIORClick to display biography Louis Joseph, SCHLIEPClick to display biography Casimir

sites and events
descriptions

Starogard Gdański: The prison in Starogard Gdański was built by the occupying Prussian authorities in 1893‐1912. In the interwar period, 1918‐1939, the facility was a penal and investigative prison for prisoners sentenced to up to 1 year in prison and served as a preventive detention center. After the German attack on Poland on 01.09.1939 and the commencement of the German occupation from mid‐09.1939 to 12.1939, the prison became a local temporary detention center, in which a special committee of the Secret State Police Gestapo and the genocidal self‐defense units Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz made selections of the detainees (c. 40 daily). Some were sent to the arrests of Gdańsk (and then to the KL Stutthof concentration camp), and some were sentenced to death (and murdered mainly in the nearby Szpęgawski forest). From 12.1939 to the end of the German occupation on 20.02.1945 the prison functioned as a court arrest. (more on: www.sw.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.17]
)

Szpęgawski forest: In Szpęgawsk forest Germans, as part of their «Intelligenzaktion» — extermination of Polish intelligentsia in Pomerania — between 09.1939 and 01.1940 in mass executions murdered 5,000‐7,000 Poles. Among them were c. 49 Catholic priests — all bar one from Starogard Gdański county, 30 from Culm diocese Curia and 5 from Pelplin. 1,692 psychiatric hospital patients in Kocborowo — in 15 mass executions starting from 22.09.1939 — part of «Aktion T4», i.e. Germ. „Vernichtung von lebensunwertem Leben” (Eng. „elimination of live not worth living”) extermination program, were also murdered there. The victims were brought from Starogard Gdański jail in trucks or buses with windows blackened at sunset or during the night. Transports avoided main roads. At murder site prisoners were forced to kneel at banks of the ditches and murdered by a shot to the back of the head. Wounded were finished off with rifle butts or buried alive. After World War II 39 mass graves were found. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.09.23]
)

Zajączek forest: In Zajączek forest n. Skórcz the Germans — German gendarmerie and members of the genocidal German organization Germ. Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz (Eng. Self‐Defense) — from 10.1939 till 12.1939, during the extermination of Polish intelligentsia in Pomeranian voivodship, called «Intelligenzaktion», murdered c.. 100‐150 inhabitants of Skórcz and surrounding villages. Previously they were held in the IL Skurz internment camp in Skórcz. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.13]
)

IL Skurz: Germ. „Internierungslager” (Eng. „Internment camp”) „for intelligentsia”, known as „Plant”, set up on 03.10.1939 by the Germans to relieve the overcrowded Starogard Gdański prison in a local sawmill in Skórcz. 50‐100 prisoners were held there at anytime. Some of them, including c. 70 local teachers and educators from Starogard county were taken later to Starogard Gdański prison and next murdered in Szpęgawsk forest. Some, including a few priests, were murdered in Zajączek forest n. Skórcz. Shut down in 11.1939. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30]
)

Starogard Gdański: The prison in Starogard Gdański was built by the occupying Prussian authorities in 1893‐1912. In the interwar period, 1918‐1939, the facility was a penal and investigative prison for prisoners sentenced to up to 1 year in prison and served as a preventive detention center. After the German attack on Poland on 01.09.1939 and the commencement of the German occupation from mid‐09.1939 to 12.1939, the prison became a local temporary detention center, in which a special committee of the Secret State Police Gestapo and the genocidal self‐defense units Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz made selections of the detainees (c. 40 daily). Some were sent to the arrests of Gdańsk (and then to the KL Stutthof concentration camp), and some were sentenced to death (and murdered mainly in the nearby Szpęgawski forest). From 12.1939 to the end of the German occupation on 20.02.1945 the prison functioned as a court arrest. (more on: www.sw.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.17]
)

«Intelligenzaktion»: (Eng. „Action Intelligentsia”) — extermination program of Polish elites, mainly intelligentsia, executed by the Germans right from the start of the occupation in 09.1939 till around 05.1940, mainly on the lands directly incorporated into Germany but also in the so‐called General Governorate where it was called «AB‐aktion». During the first phase right after start of German occupation of Poland implemented as Germ. Unternehmen „Tannenberg” (Eng. „Tannenberg operation”) — plan based on proscription lists of Poles worked out by (Germ. Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen), regarded by Germans as specially dangerous to the German Reich. List contained names of c. 61,000 Poles. Altogether during this genocide Germans methodically murdered c. 50,000 teachers, priests, landowners, social and political activists and retired military. Further 50,000 were sent to concentration camps where most of them perished. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.04]
)

Reichsgau Danzig‐Westpreußen: After the Polish defeat in the 09.1939 campaign, which was the result of the Ribbentrop‐Molotov Pact and constituted the first stage of World War II, and the beginning of German occupation in part of Poland (in the other, eastern part of Poland, the Russian occupation began), the Germans divided the occupied Polish territory into five main regions (and a few smaller). The largest one was transformed into Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), intended exclusively for Poles and Jews and constituting part of the so‐called Germ. Großdeutschland (Eng. Greater Germany). Two were added to existing German provinces. From two other separate new provinces were created. Vistula Pomerania region was one of them, incorporated into Germany on 08.10.1939, by decree of the German leader Adolf Hitler (formally came into force on 26.10.1939), and on 02.11.1939 transformed into the Germ. Reichsgau Danzig‐Westpreußen (Eng. Reich District of Gdańsk‐West Prussia) province, in which the law of the German state was to apply. The main axis of the policy of the new province, the territory of which the Germans recognized as the Germ. „Ursprünglich Deutsche” (Eng. „natively German”), despite the fact that 85% of its inhabitants were Poles, was Germ. „Entpolonisierung” (Eng. „Depolonisation”), i.e. forced Germanization. C. 60,000 Poles were murdered in 1939‐1940, as part of the Germ. „Intelligenzaktion”, i.e. extermination of Polish intelligentsia and ruling classes, in c. 432 places of mass executions — including c. 220 Polish Catholic priests. The same number were sent to German concentration camps, from where few returned (over 300 priests were arrested, of whom c. 130 died in concentration camps). C. 124,000‐170,000 were displaced, including c. 90,000 to the Germ. Generalgouvernement. Poles were forced en masse to sign the German nationality list, the Germ. Deutsche Volksliste DVL. Polish children could only learn in German. It was forbidden to use the Polish language during Catholic Holy Masses and during confession. Polish landed estates were confiscated..To further reduce the number of the Polish population, Poles were sent to forced labor deep inside Germany. The remaining Poles were treated as low‐skilled labor, isolated from the Germans and strictly controlled — legally, three or three of them could only meet together, even in their own apartments. Many were conscripted into the German Wehrmacht army. After the end of hostilities of World War II, the overseer of this province, the Germ. Reichsstatthalter (Eng. Reich Governor) and the Germ. Gauleiter (Eng. district head) of the German National Socialist Party, Albert Maria Forster, was executed. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2024.06.24]
)

Pius XI's encyclicals: Facing the creation of two totalitarian systems in Europe, which seemed to compete with each other, though there were more similarities than contradictions between them, Pope Pius XI issued in 03.1937 (within 5 days) two encyclicals. In the „Mit brennender Sorge” (Eng. „With Burning Concern”) published on 14.03.1938, condemned the national socialism prevailing in Germany. The Pope wrote: „Whoever, following the old Germanic‐pre‐Christian beliefs, puts various impersonal fate in the place of a personal God, denies the wisdom of God and Providence […], whoever exalts earthly values: race or nation, or state, or state system, representatives of state power or other fundamental values of human society, […] and makes them the highest standard of all values, including religious ones, and idolizes them, this one […] is far from true faith in God and from a worldview corresponding to such faith”. On 19.03.1937, published „Divini Redemptoris” (Eng. „Divine Redeemer”), in which criticized Russian communism, dialectical materialism and the class struggle theory. The Pope wrote: „Communism deprives man of freedom, and therefore the spiritual basis of all life norms. It deprives the human person of all his dignity and any moral support with which he could resist the onslaught of blind passions […] This is the new gospel that Bolshevik and godless communism preaches as a message of salvation and redemption of humanity”… Pius XI demanded that the established human law be subjected to the natural law of God , recommended the implementation of the ideal of a Christian state and society, and called on Catholics to resist. Two years later, National Socialist Germany and Communist Russia came together and started World War II. (more on: www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28]
, www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28]
)

Pius XI's encyclicals: Facing the creation of two totalitarian systems in Europe, which seemed to compete with each other, though there were more similarities than contradictions between them, Pope Pius XI issued in 03.1937 (within 5 days) two encyclicals. In the „Mit brennender Sorge” (Eng. „With Burning Concern”) published on 14.03.1938, condemned the national socialism prevailing in Germany. The Pope wrote: „Whoever, following the old Germanic‐pre‐Christian beliefs, puts various impersonal fate in the place of a personal God, denies the wisdom of God and Providence […], whoever exalts earthly values: race or nation, or state, or state system, representatives of state power or other fundamental values of human society, […] and makes them the highest standard of all values, including religious ones, and idolizes them, this one […] is far from true faith in God and from a worldview corresponding to such faith”. On 19.03.1937, published „Divini Redemptoris” (Eng. „Divine Redeemer”), in which criticized Russian communism, dialectical materialism and the class struggle theory. The Pope wrote: „Communism deprives man of freedom, and therefore the spiritual basis of all life norms. It deprives the human person of all his dignity and any moral support with which he could resist the onslaught of blind passions […] This is the new gospel that Bolshevik and godless communism preaches as a message of salvation and redemption of humanity”… Pius XI demanded that the established human law be subjected to the natural law of God , recommended the implementation of the ideal of a Christian state and society, and called on Catholics to resist. Two years later, National Socialist Germany and Communist Russia came together and started World War II. (more on: www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28]
, www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28]
)

sources

personal:
pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23]
, www.niedziela.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.13]
, www.hagiographycircle.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23]

bibliographical:
Biographical dictionary of priests ordained in the years 1921‐1945 working in the Chełmno diocese”, Fr Anastasius Nadolny, prof., Bernardinum publishing house 2021
original images:
niedziela.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2017.11.07]
, www.worldvitalrecords.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10]
, www.youtube.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.05.30]
, gdansk.ipn.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2020.10.02]

LETTER to CUSTODIAN/ADMINISTRATOR

If you have an Email client on your communicator/computer — such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Windows Mail or Microsoft Outlook, described at WikipediaPatrz:
en.wikipedia.org
, among others  — try the link below, please:

LETTER to CUSTODIAN/ADMINISTRATORClick and try to call your own Email client

If however you do not run such a client or the above link is not active please send an email to the Custodian/Administrator using your account — in your customary email/correspondence engine — at the following address:

EMAIL ADDRESS

giving the following as the subject:

MARTYROLOGY: BELCZEWSKI Victor Bernard

To return to the biography press below:

Click to return to biographyClick to return to biography