beatification date

13.06.1999more on
www.swzygmunt.knc.pl
[access: 2013.05.19]

John Paul IImore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]

function

diocesan priest

creed

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

diocese / province

Częstochowa diocesemore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]
Military Ordinariate of Polandmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.12.20]

academic distinctions

Sacred Theology MA

date and place
of death

24.06.1942

KL Dachauconcentration camp
today: Dachau, Upper Bavaria reg., Bavaria state, Germany
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2016.05.30]

details of death

cause of death

extermination: exhaustion and starvation

perpetrators

Germans

date and place
of birth

21.02.1908

Żarnowiectoday: Żarnowiec gm., Zawiercie pow., Silesia voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.28]

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

21.06.1931 (Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowamore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2017.11.07])

positions held

biography (own resources)

Click to read biography details from our resources

murder sites
camp 
(+ prisoner no)

KL Dachau (prisoner no: 28450Click to display biography): KL Dachau in German Bavaria, set up in 1933, became the main concentration camp for Catholic priests and religious during II World War: On c. 09.11.1940, Reichsführer–SS Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, Gestapo and German police, as a result of the Vatican's intervention, decided to transfer all clergymen detained in various concentration camps to KL Dachau camp. The first major transports took place on 08.12.1940. In KL Dachau Germans held approx. 3,000 priests, including 1,800 Poles. The priests were forced to slave labor in the Germ. „Die Plantage” — the largest herb garden in Europe, managed by the genocidal SS, consisting of many greenhouses, laboratory buildings and arable land, where experiments with new natural medicines were conducted — for many hours, without breaks, without protective clothing, no food. They slaved in construction, e.g. of camp's crematorium. In the barracks ruled hunger, freezing cold in the winter and suffocating heat during the summer. Prisoners suffered from bouts of illnesses, including tuberculosis. Many were victims of murderous „medical experiments” — in 11.1942 c. 20 were given phlegmon injections; in 07.1942 to 05.1944 c. 120 were used by for malaria experiments. More than 750 Polish clerics where murdered by the Germans, some brought to Schloss Hartheim euthanasia centre and murdered in gas chambers. At its peak KL Dachau concentration camps’ system had nearly 100 slave labour sub–camps located throughout southern Germany and Austria. There were c. 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands perished without a trace. C. 10,000 of the 30,000 inmates were found sick at the time of liberation, on 29.04.1945, by the USA troops… (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.05.30])

DL Konstantinow: German Germ. Durchgangslager (Eng. Transit camp), resettlement concentration camp established on 05.01.1940 in Konstantynów Łódzki (c. 10 km west of the center of Łódź), and operational till 16.08.1943. Polish prisoners from Greater Poland (Wielkopolska), Pomerania and central Poland were held there. Approx. 42,000 were interned, thousands of them perished out of which approx. 700 were identified. In 10.1941‑12.1941 approx. 450 Polish priests and religious from Częstochowa, Łódź and Włocławek dioceses and Poznań archdiocese were imprisoned there prior to transport to KL Dachau concentration camp. (more on: ipn.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19])

06.10.1941 arrests (Warthegau): On 13.09.1941 Gaulaiter of German province Germ. Warthegau i.e. Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland, in German–occupied Greater Poland (where German standard law was in force), Artur Greiser, implementing „Ohne Gott, ohne Religion, ohne Priesters und Sakramenten” — „without God, without religion, without priest and sacrament” — policy issued a decree formally dissolving Catholic Church and forming in its place a Roman Catholic German National Church in Germ. Warthegau, an organization subject to a German private law. The ordinance was issued backdated to 01.09.1939, i.e. the date of the German invasion of Poland, which sanctioned the later robbery of the property of the Catholic Church acting for the benefit of the Polish population by the Germans. All the contacts with Vatican were forbidden. All the religion congregations were also dissolved. On 06‑07.10.1941 mass arrests of Polish Catholic priests took place. All were herded into Konstantynów or Ląd on Warta river transit camps or KL Posen concentration camp (in this case, the detainees were first registered, photographed and examined in the infamous Poznań headquarters of the German political police, the Gestapo, in the former Soldier's House). On 30.10.1941 most of them were transported to KL Dachau concentration camp.

Air raids 1939: During invasion of Poland commenced on 01.09.1939 Germans systematically attacked civilian targets. Many cities (Wieluń, Frampol, Warszawa, Lwów, Łomża, Puck, etc.) were bombed during air raids and totally destroyed. The hospitals and churches, visibly marked as such, were not spared. German planes also attacked columns of fleeing people on the roads, massacring them. It is estimated that c. 150,000–200,000 civilians were killed or murdered by the Germans in 09.1939. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.04.18])

Ribbentrop-Molotov: Genocidal Russian–German alliance pact between Russian leader Joseph Stalin and German leader Adolf Hitler signed on 23.08.1939 in Moscow by respective foreign ministers, Mr. Vyacheslav Molotov for Russia and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany. The pact sanctioned and was the direct cause of joint Russian and German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the II World War in 09.1939. In a political sense, the pact was an attempt to restore the status quo ante before 1914, with one exception, namely the „commercial” exchange of the so–called „Kingdom of Poland”, which in 1914 was part of the Russian Empire, fore Eastern Galicia (today's western Ukraine), in 1914 belonging to the Austro–Hungarian Empire. Galicia, including Lviv, was to be taken over by the Russians, the „Kingdom of Poland” — under the name of the General Governorate — Germany. The resultant „war was one of the greatest calamities and dramas of humanity in history, for two atheistic and anti–Christian ideologies — national and international socialism — rejected God and His fifth Decalogue commandment: Thou shall not kill!” (Abp Stanislaus Gądecki, 01.09.2019). The decisions taken — backed up by the betrayal of the formal allies of Poland, France and Germany, which on 12.09.1939, at a joint conference in Abbeville, decided not to provide aid to attacked Poland and not to take military action against Germany (a clear breach of treaty obligations with Poland) — were on 28.09.1939 slightly altered and made more precise when a treaty on „German–Russian boundaries and friendship” was agreed by the same murderous signatories. One of its findings was establishment of spheres of influence in Central and Eastern Europe and in consequence IV partition of Poland. In one of its secret annexes agreed, that: „the Signatories will not tolerate on its respective territories any Polish propaganda that affects the territory of the other Side. On their respective territories they will suppress all such propaganda and inform each other of the measures taken to accomplish it”. The agreements resulted in a series of meeting between two genocidal organization representing both sides — German Gestapo and Russian NKVD when coordination of efforts to exterminate Polish intelligentsia and Polish leading classes (in Germany called Intelligenzaktion, in Russia took the form of Katyń massacres) where discussed. Resulted in deaths of hundreds of thousands of Polish intelligentsia, including thousands of priests presented here, and tens of millions of ordinary people,. The results of this Russian–German pact lasted till 1989 and are still in evidence even today. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30])

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])

sources

personal:
swzygmunt.knc.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], arolsen-archives.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.10.13], www.ipgs.usClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23]
bibliograhical:, „Schematismus Universi Venerabilis Cleri Saecularis et Regularis Dioecesis CzęstochoviensisClick to display biography”, Częstochowa diocesa Curia, 1926‑39, diocesan printing house,
original images:
olkuszanin.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10], prawy.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.08.14], www.ogrodywspomnien.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.08.14], archiczest.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.08.14], www.basiapg.republika.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.01.06], www.basiapg.republika.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.01.06], www.szczecin.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.09.21]