function

diocesan priest

creed

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

diocese / province

Pinsk diocesemore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]
Mogilev archdiocesemore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.06.23]

date and place
of death

13.07.1942

Polonkatoday: Polonka ssov., Baranavichy dist., Brest reg., Belarus
more on
be.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.01.18]

details of death

cause of death

mass murder

perpetrators

Germans / Belarusians

sites and events

Połonka (n. Baranavichy)Click to display the description, «Polenaktion» 1942Click to display the description, KL KoldichevoClick to display the description, Baranavichy (prison)Click to display the description, Help to the JewsClick to display the description, Ribbentrop‐MolotovClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description, Moscow (Butyrki)Click to display the description

date and place
of birth

16.06.1891

Nowa Olszanka n. Sokaln. Sokal
today: Ukraine

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

16.04.1917

positions held

others related
in death

BARTUSZEKClick to display biography Joseph, BRYCZKOWSKIClick to display biography Boleslav, GRZESIAKClick to display biography Thaddeus Michael, KARAMUCKIClick to display biography Louis, KLIMCZAKClick to display biography Vladislav, KUBIKClick to display biography Mieczyslav Anthony, KURAŚClick to display biography Vincent, MĄCIORClick to display biography Thomas, OLESZCZUKClick to display biography Alphonse, PAWŁOWSKIClick to display biography Vladislav Sigismund, RUTKOWSKIClick to display biography Boleslav, SIUDZIŃSKIClick to display biography Vincent, ULIŃSKIClick to display biography Francis, WARCHAPOWICZClick to display biography Vladislav, WIERZBICKIClick to display biography Victor

sites and events
descriptions

Połonka (n. Baranavichy): Mass a group of approx. 50‐400 people (mainly Poles, including c. 15‐17 priests) carried out on 13.07.1942 2 by the Germ. Sonderkommando — a special unit of the Germ. Weißruthenische Hilfspolizei (Eng. Belarusian Auxiliary Police) collaborating with the Germans. The execution took place in a forest by Połonka village, c. 25 km to west from Baranavichy, and the wire‐bound prisoners where brought from KL Koldychevo concentration camp and Baranavichy prison. Prob. was part of German special action aimed at Polish intelligentsia and including mass herding and sending to Germany of Polish slave workers, known as «Polenaktion». (more on: www.stankiewicze.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.02.15], genealogia.plewako.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.09.21])

«Polenaktion» 1942: In the summer of 1942 in German‐occupied Germ. Generalbezirk Weißruthenien (Eng. General Region of Belarus) — in Nowogródek region among others — Germans carried out «Polenaktion» initiative: the name introduced in a special resolution drafted by Reichssicherheitshauptamt RSHA (Eng. Reich Main Security Office). The action included sacking of all Poles from civilian regional apparatus and police and replacing them with Belarusians. Thousands of Poles were also forcibly deported to Germany as slave labourers. On 26‐30.06.1942 in all counties of the region more than 1,000 representatives of Polish intelligentsia were arrested and subsequently murdered. In Lida region 16 Polish priests were arrested among others. 5 Polish parish priests from Hlybokaye and Pastavy deanery were murdered as well. At the same time Germans set up KL Koldichevo concentration camp n. Baranavichy. The implementation of this genocide project was entrusted to Belarusian police formations supported by Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Russian (RONA) collaborators.

KL Koldichevo: German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL and death/extermination camp operational from 03.1942 to 07.1944 in Koldychevo village, 20 km from Baranavichy, in Belarus — to be precise in Germ. Generalbezirk Weißruthenien (Eng. General Districtorate of Belarus), part of the occupation entity called the Germ. Reichskommissariat Ostland (Eng. Reichskommissariat East). Jews and Poles, among others, were held in the camp, which was supervised by several Germans, but the managers, guards and executioners were Belarusians, and the language of orders and commands was Belarusian — the crew were members of the 4th Company of the 13th Belarusian Police Battalion SD (Germ. Weissruthenische Schutzmannschafts Bataillon der SD 13), which was part of the collaborationist Germ. Weißruthenische Hilfspolizei (Eng. Belarusian Auxiliary Police). A crematorium was opened in the camp. It witnessed c. 22,000 victims being murdered and exterminated — men, women, children, old, of various professions and social status, mainly Polish nationals, including c. 24 Catholic priests. Some of them were murdered by deadly gas, prob. in specially equipped trucks (the bodies were subsequently dumped in Lakhivka forest, c. 2 km from the camp). Others were taken to Polonka and murdered there. Victims were also murdered by the Belarusians with a shot to the back of the head or with sticks with protruding nails. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.08.31], www.sztetl.org.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.12.04])

Baranavichy (prison): Prison in 1939‐1941 run by Russians and in 1941‐1944 by Germans. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.17])

Help to the Jews: During World War II on the Polish occupied territories Germans forbid to give any support to the Jews under penalty of death. Hundreds of Polish priests and religious helped the Jews despite this official sanction. Many of them were caught and murdered.

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 World War II 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 Stanislav 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], www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28])

Moscow (Butyrki): Harsh transit and interrogation prison in Moscow — for political prisoners — where Russians held and murdered thousands of Poles. Founded prob. in XVII century. In XIX century many Polish insurgents (Polish uprisings of 1831 and 1863) were held there. During Communist regime a place of internment for political prisoners prior to a transfer to Russian slave labour complex Gulag. During the Great Purge c. 20,000 inmates were held there at any time (c. 170 in every cell). Thousands were murdered. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2020.05.01])

sources

personal:
www.glaukopis.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], www.radzima.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.05.19], www.polacyizydzi.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.02.15], wastan.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.12.28]
bibliographical:
„Martyrology of the Polish Roman Catholic clergy under nazi occupation in 1939‐1945”, Victor Jacewicz, John Woś, vol. I‐V, Warsaw Theological Academy, 1977‐1981
„Fate of the Catholic clergy in USSR 1917‐1939. Martyrology”, Roman Dzwonkowski, SAC, ed. Science Society KUL, 2003, Lublin
„Pinsk Diocese in Poland Clergy and Church Register”, Pinsk diocese bishop, 1933‐1939, diocesan printing house
original images:
www.iwieniec.euClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19], www.svaboda.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30], ipn.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.02.02]