function

laybrother

creed

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

congregation

Order of Friars Minor OFMmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]
(i.e. Franciscans, Minorites)

diocese / province

Assumption into Heaven of the Blessed Mary province OFMmore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.08.14]
St Hedwig od Silesia province OFMmore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.08.18]

date and place
of death

24.03.1945

Nysatoday: Nysa gm., Nysa pov., Opole voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.04.02]

details of death

cause of death

mass murder

perpetrators

Russians

sites and events

Nysa (murder of Franciscans)Click to display the description, Nysa (rapes)Click to display the description, Mass rapes in 1945Click to display the description, IL LubinClick to display the description, IL GörchenClick to display the description, Reichsgau WarthelandClick to display the description, Ribbentrop‐MolotovClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description

date and place
of birth

17.09.1893

Kochłowicetoday: district of Ruda Śląska, Ruda Śląska city pov., Silesia voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.04.02]

religious vows

08.02.1920 (temporary)
10.02.1923 (permanent)

positions held

others related
in death

BOECHNIGHClick to display biography John (Bro. Gotfryd), ELLMERERClick to display biography Anne (Sr Felicitas), EWERTClick to display biography Mary (Sr Sylvestra), FLUDERClick to display biography Vaclav (Bro. Ferdinand), FRONCEKClick to display biography John (Bro. Casimir), FUGEClick to display biography Magdalene (Sr Cantiana), GONSCHIORClick to display biography Anne (Sr Balda), HARBIGClick to display biography Mary (Sr Sanctia), HERBERGClick to display biography Josefa (Sr Honorina), HEYMANNClick to display biography Lucy (Sr Sapientia), POHLClick to display biography Hedwig (Sr Jacoba), RIEDELClick to display biography Therese Magdalene (Sr Julia), RYBKAClick to display biography Martha (Sr Melusia), SONSALLAClick to display biography Augustine (Fr Benno), TEICHERClick to display biography Mary (Sr Dominata), TÖPFERClick to display biography Hedwig (Sr Adelheidis), WEGNERClick to display biography Felix (Bro. Dennis)

sites and events
descriptions

Nysa (murder of Franciscans): On 24.03.1945 during capture of Nysa Russian soldiers entered Franciscan monastery — where 12 religious, including 4 priests and 8 friars, took care of elderly and sick who were unable to escape — for the first time in the morning. Later the same day many other Russian bands entered monastery looking for watches, gold and alcohol. At midday 6 of the religious — one priest and five friars — were dead. Russians forced them to take their habits off. Those who had only their underwear on were released. Others wearing trousers were summarily murdered by a shot to the head. (more on: www.nto.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.31])

Nysa (rapes): In 02‐03.1945 when victorious Russian troops were approaching Nysa Germans ordered evacuation of the town. But many old, infirm and wounded — tended to in hospitals among others — were unable to move. Many religious sisters decided to stay with them, mainly Elisabethan nuns. After fall of largely untouched by war town on 24.03.1945 Russians set alight historic city center. In a burning city drunken Russian soldiers initiated hunts for women. More than 150 nuns were raped and insulted, numerous times — some a few dozen — soldiers formed long queues to their victims. They did not spare 80 years old and even paralysed nuns. Those that attempted to defend were murdered on sight or tortured. In effect 27 nuns were slaughtered. Many of those that survived were deported to Russia. The Russian fury was allegedly stoked by, among others, the Russian writer of Jewish origin, publicist, and poet, Ilia Ehrenburg, who was supposed to have said: „Obey the orders of Comrade Stalin and crush the fascist beast in its lair. Destroy the racial pride of German women. Take them as well–deserved spoils of war”… (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.05.06])

Mass rapes in 1945: During capture in 1944‐1945 of pre‐war German territories and territories incorporated into Germany in 1939 after German invasion of Poland Russian soldiers committed mass, often multiple, rapes on mainly German, but also Polish, women. Up to 2 mln women might have been violated, from 8 to 80 or more years old. Many were murdered as a consequence. Rapes were prob. tolerated if not encouraged by Russian military and civilian NKVD commanders. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.03.01])

IL Lubin: The Gestapo District Office in Poznań issued on 13.12.1939 executive instruction Ref. IIB No. 406/39 Tgb. No. 3045/39, ordering: „Based on the regulation of the Germ. Höherer SS‐ und Polizeiführer (Eng. Higher Commander of the SS and Police) [of the Germ. Warthegau (Eng. Greater Poland)] province of 12.11.1939 [SS‐Gruppenführer Wilhelm Koppe], apart from Poles and Jews, also Catholic clergy will be expelled. Action against this group of people should be carried out in such a way that internment and transport are separate […] C. 80% of Catholic clergy are expected to be expelled. The selection based on political threat posed. Internees cannot be placed in regular transit camps due to the possibility of international protest. Catholic clergy should be interned in men's monasteries and held there till mass transportation out”. And so at the Benedictine abbey in Lubiń near Kościan, at the beginning of 1940, the Germans — Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. Gestapo — organized an temporary Germ. „Internierungslager” (Eng. „Internment camp”) IL Chludowo for priests and friars from Greater Poland (dated from 15.02.1940, although the Germans brought several priests to the abbey earlier). E.g. in 04.1941 Franciscan friars from Goruszki monastery were brought in. In total, 104 clergymen were held in the monastery. On 06.10.1941, as part of the third great operation of arrests of the Polish clergy of Greater Poland — more precisely, from the Germ. Warthegau occupational province — all interned priests were transported to the KL Dachau concentration camp. Religious brothers were allowed to return to their family homes. The monastery was turned into an old people's home, and later as a training center for national‐socialist German youth, Germ. „Hitler‐Jugend” (Eng. „Hitler youth”). Rich library collections and other goods were plundered. The Benedictines returned to the monastery on 25.01.1945, after the German defeat. (more on: www.benedyktyni.netClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10], pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10])

IL Görchen: The Franciscan monastery „Goruszki” in Miejska Górka, c. 10 km from Rawicz, became a place of internment for Polish priests and friars from surrounding counties (including Leszno County). On 15.02.1940 became, officers of the murderous Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. Gestapo, entered the monastery, bringing the first 18 priests to be interned and demanded that the Franciscan Fathers took over responsibility for their stay in the monastery, forbidding them and the friars to leave the monastery. The monastery became de facto Germ. „Internierungslager” (Eng. „internment camp”) IL Görchen. On 01‐02.04.1941 the Germans entered the monastery by force and transferred all the internees — priests and monks – to the internment camp in Lubiń. They turned the monastery buildings into a prison — a branch of the prison in Rawicz, i.e. Germ. Außenkommando Tbc‐Station (Eng. external ward for patients with tuberculosis). It became the place of execution of hundreds of Poles — today there are 453 graves of the murdered in the monastery cemetery. The prison functioned until 1945 and the fall of national–socialist Germany. (more on: www.franciszkanie-goruszki.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19])

Reichsgau Wartheland: 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. Greater Poland 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 24.01.1940 transformed into the Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland 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 90% of its inhabitants were Poles, was Germ. „Entpolonisierung” (Eng. „Depolonisation”), i.e. forced Germanization. C. 100,000 Poles were murdered as part of the Germ. „Intelligenzaktion”, i.e. extermination of Polish intelligentsia and ruling classes. C. 630,000 were forcibly resettled to the Germ. Generalgouvernement, and their place taken by the Germans brought from other areas occupied by Germany (e.g. the Baltic countries, Bessarabia, Bukovina, etc.). Poles were forced to sign the German nationality list, the Germ. Deutsche Volksliste DVL. As part of the policy of „Ohne Gott, ohne Religion, ohne Priesters und Sakramenten” (Eng. „No God, no religion, no priest or sacrament”) most Catholic priests were arrested and sent to concentration camps. All schools teaching in Polish, Polish libraries, theaters and museums were closed. Polish landed estates confiscated. To further reduce the number of the Polish population, Poles were sent to forced labor deep inside Germany, and the legal age of marriage for Poles was increased (25 for women, 28 for men). The German state office, Germ. Rasse‐ und Siedlungshauptamt (Eng. Main Office of Race and Settlement) RuSHA, under the majesty of German law, abducted several thousand children who met specific racial criteria from Polish families and subjected them to forced Germanization, handing them over to German families. 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, Arthur Karl Greiser, was executed. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2024.06.21])

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])

sources

personal:
fhn.cba.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.04.16], silesia.edu.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.04.16], www.panewniki.franciszkanie.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.03.01]
bibliographical:
„Lexicon of the clergy vicimised in prl in 1945‐1989”, collective work edited by Jerzy Myszor, Warsaw, 2002
original images:
www.encyklo.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19]