function

laybrother (coadjutor)

creed

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

congregation

Society of St Francis de Sales SDBmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]
(i.e. Salesians of Don Bosco)

diocese / province

St Stanislav Kostka Warsaw Inspectorate SDB

date and place
of death

25.04.1945

KL Bergen‐Belsenconcentration camp
today: n. Bergen, Celle dist., Lower Saxony state, Germany
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.09]

alt. dates and places
of death

Sandbosteltoday: Rotenburg (Wümme) dist., Lower Saxony state, Germany
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.04.10]

details of death

alt. details of death

cause of death

extermination: exhaustion

perpetrators

Germans

sites and events

Stalag X‐B SandbostelClick to display the description, KL Bergen‐BelsenClick to display the description, KL NeuengammeClick to display the description, KL Groß‐RosenClick to display the description, PawiakClick to display the description, 07.02.1944 arrestsClick to display the description, GeneralgouvernementClick to display the description, Ribbentrop‐MolotovClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description

date and place
of birth

08.02.1903

Maków Podhalańskitoday: Maków Podhalański gm., Sucha Beskidzka pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.07]

religious vows

07.08.1921 (temporary)

positions held

others related
in death

DOBOSZClick to display biography Anthony, JĘDRAClick to display biography Martin, KRAJEWSKIClick to display biography Joseph, PLUCIŃSKIClick to display biography Valentine, PYKOSZClick to display biography John, SZMERGALSKIClick to display biography Simon, URASZEWSKIClick to display biography Joseph, WOJCIECHOWSKIClick to display biography Steven, WOJTKOWIAKClick to display biography Joseph, WÓJCIKClick to display biography Vladislav

sites and events
descriptions

Stalag X‐B Sandbostel: German POW camp for soldiers and dla soldiers and non‐commissioned officers, 43 km north‐east from Brema, one of the worst. Prisoners lived mostly in tents, in Osadzeni przebywali przeważnie w namiotach, in swamps with a humid, cold climate. In 1939‐1945 more than 1 mln POWs of 46 nationalities were held captive there. C. 50,000 perished from hunger, diseasses, exhaustion or were murdered. In 10.1944, after fall of Warsaw Uprising, Polish resistance Home Army AK soldiers were brought to the camp, including more than 1,000 women soldiers. On 01.11.1944 Germans held in the camp 4,895 Poles, 11,337 French, 1,732 Belgians, 3,040 Yugoslavians, 20,169 Russians and 9,453 Italians. The camp was liberated on 29.04.1945 by British troops. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.10.13])

KL Bergen‐Belsen: Till 1944 KL Bergen‐Belsen was a prisoner‐of‐war camp, in 1944 was changed into the German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL, in 1945 in so‐called „death marches” thousands of prisoners from other concentration camps were transferred, approx. 50,000 of them died in Bergen‐Belsen. When the camp on 15.04.1945 was liberated by the British troops c. 13,000 unburied bodies were found together with c. 60,000 inmates, emaciated, starving, without a food or drink for days, suffering from illness and sickness, mainly typhoid. C. 14,000 of them perished in next two months without regaining strength and health. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.03.10])

KL Neuengamme: German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL, initially fillial to KL Sachsenhausen, from 1940 independent. Prisoners were used as slave labor — till 1942 in the production of bricks (e.g. extraction and transport of clay), and then in various German private arms factories. The Germ. „Vernichtung durch Arbeit” (Eng. „extermination through work”) principle was applied to prisoners, as a result of which, out of over 100,400 prisoners 42,900‐55,000, according to various estimates, perished. Some were murdered during tests with Cyklon B gas, which was next used for the genocide of Jews in KL Auschwitz. On 18.04.1945, the evacuation of the camp began. The Germans dragged the survivors in the so‐called „death marches” to other camps, but some locked in a few ships standing in the roadstead of the port in Hamburg. Two of them were bombed by the Allies and most of the prisoners perished. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23])

KL Groß‐Rosen: Groß‐Rosen (today: Rogoźnica) was a German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL, founded in the summer of 1940 (first transport of prisoners arrived on 02.08.1940). Initially a branch of KL Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In 1944 became a centre of a network of more than 100 camps. Prisoners were forced to slave at nearby granite quarries, on starvation rations. More than 125,000 prisoners were enslaved — 40,000 victims perished. In 1945 — in „death marches” — Germans dragged through the camp thousands of prisoners from the camp’s in east being one by one overrun by the Russians. The camp itself was captured by the Russians on 14.02.1945. (more on: www.gross-rosen.euClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.07.18], en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.02.02])

Pawiak: Investigative prison in Warsaw, built by the Russian occupiers of Poland in 1830‐1835. During the Poland partition's period, a Russian investigative prison, both criminal and political. During World War II and the German occupation, the largest German prison in the Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate). Initially, it was subordinate to the Justice Department of the General Governorate, and from 03.1940 Germ. Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienst (Eng. Security Police and Security Service) of the Warsaw District — in particular the German Secret Political Police Gestapo. c. 3,000 prisoners were kept in Pawiak permanently, of which about 2,200 in the men's unit and c. 800 in the women's unit (the so‐called Serbia) — with a „capacity” of c. 1,000 prisoners. In total, in the years 1939‐1944, c. 100,000 Poles passed through the prison, of which c. 37,000 were murdered in executions — from 10.1943 Pawiak prisoners were murdered in open executions on the streets of Warsaw (sometimes several times a day) — during interrogations, in cells or in a prison „hospital”, and c. 60,000 were taken in 95 transports to concentration camps (mainly KL Auischwitz), other places of isolation or to forced labor. The prison Germans demolished during the Warsaw Uprising in 08‐10.1944. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2022.08.17])

07.02.1944 arrests: In apparent in retaliation for the successful attempt on the head of the Warsaw Gestapo and the SS gen. Kutschera (01.02.1944) German political police (Gestapo) arrested many priests and religious in Warsaw, Cracow, Lublin and Radom, including 17 priests, 14 religious and many pupils and staff members of the Fr Siemiec orphans' house run by Salesian Fathers in Warsaw and 14 Vincentian (Lazarists) priests, 5 Vincentian religious and 3 lay people ministering in the Holy Cross church in Warsaw. They were taken to infamous Pawiak prison in Warsaw and next some of them were transported to KL Groß‐Rosen concentration camp.

Generalgouvernement: 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. In two of them new German provinces were created, two other were incorporated into other provinces. However, the fifth part was treated separately, and in a political sense it was supposed to recreate the German idea from 1915 (during World War I, after the defeat of the Russians in the Battle of Gorlice in 05.1915) of creating a Polish enclave within Germany. Illegal in the sense of international law, i.e. Hague Convention, and public law, managed by the Germans according to separate laws — especially established for the Polish Germ. Untermenschen (Eng. subhumans) — till the Russian offensive in 1945 it constituted part of the Germ. Großdeutschland (Eng. Greater Germany). Till 31.07.1940 formally called Germ. Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete (Eng. General Government for the occupied Polish lands) — later simply Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), as in the years 1915‐1918. From 07.1941, i.e. after the German attack on 22.06.1941 against the erstwhile ally, the Russians, it also included the Galicia district, i.e. the Polish pre‐war south‐eastern voivodeships. A special criminal law was enacted and applied to Poles and Jews, allowing for the arbitrary administration of the death penalty regardless of the age of the „perpetrator”, and sanctioning the use of collective responsibility. After the end of the military conflict of the World War UU, the government of the Germ. Generalgouvernement was recognized as a criminal organization, and its leader, governor Hans Frank, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and executed. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2024.12.13])

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:
bws.sdb.org.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.05.30]
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
„A martyrology of Polish clergy under German occupation, 1939‐1945”, Fr Szołdrski Vladislaus CSSR, Rome 1965
„Salesian Society in Poland under occupation 1939‐1945”, Fr John Pietrzykowski SDB, Institute of National Remembrance IPN, Warsaw, 2015
original images:
www.lad.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.02.15], pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.12.04]