function

diocesan priest

creed

Latin (Roman Catholic) Churchmore 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

21.10.1939

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

alt. dates and places
of death

Górna Grupatoday: Dragacz gm., Świecie pow., Kuyavia–Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.09.02]

details of death

cause of death

mass murder

perpetrators

Germans

date and place
of birth

31.01.1891

Gdynia - Stare Obłuże - Koloniaparish seat name
today: district of Gdynia, Gdynia city pow., Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.09.02]

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

14.03.1919

positions held

others related
in death

KUZIMSKAClick to display biography Helen, OSIŃSKIClick to display biography Vladislav, WOHLGEMUTHClick to display biography Lucy, ZGAGOWSKIClick to display biography Victor

murder sites
camp 
(+ prisoner no)

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 „AktionT4”, 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 II World War 39 mass graves were found. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.09.23])

Mniszek / Grupa forest: From 10.1939 till approx. 04.1940 in the complex of forests by villages of Mniszek (in a former gravel mine) and Grupa (on the former Polish military training ground), c. 16 km to the north–east of Świecie and c. 10 km to the west of Grudziądz, Germans murdered in mass executions approx. 10,000 Poles, brought from prison in Świecie, from Psychiatric Hospital in Świecie (c. 1,000 patients — the patients were brought in parties 60‑strong, having been given sedatives prior to dispatch), prison in Grudziądz, internment camp in Nowe on Vistula, from Steyler Missionaries (Verbite friars) missionary house in Górna Grupa — mainly intelligentsia, from Świecie, Bydgoszcz, Chełmno, Grudziądz and Starogard Gdański counties in Pomerania. Among the victims were c. 120 children brought out under a school trip guise. Murders were perpetrated by Germans from Selbstschutz and SS genocidal organisations. Wehrmacht soldiers served as truck drivers. The victims were being killed of with shovels, sticks, sometimes buried alive. Those who attempted to defend themselves were hung. In 1944 Germand dug out most of the bodies and burnt them. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19])

Kocborowo (Institute): In the Szpęgawski forest, the Germans — as part of the „Aktion T4” — murdered all the patients of the hospital for the nervous and mentally ill in Kocborowo. The extermination was carried out by SS‑Wachsturmbann „Eimann” unit. The first murder of 88 patients was carried out by the Germans on 22.09.1939. Earlier, after the start of the German occupation, all Poles were removed from administrative duties, and the management was taken over by a German „doctor” with a professor title, who conducted selection patients for the needs of „Aktion T4”. Until 21.01.1940, the Germans had murdered 1,689 patients and some of the Polish administrative staff of the hospital. Among the victims there were also c. 700 people from the hospital in Świecie on the Vistula, 70 from Tworki near Warsaw and c. 40 children from the hospital in Gniew. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.04])

Aktion T4: German euthanasia program, systematic murder of people mentally retarded, chronically, mentally and neurologically ill — „elimination of live not worth living” (Germ. „Vernichtung von lebensunwertem Leben”). In a peak, in 1940‑1, c. 70,000 people were murdered, including patients of psychiatric hospitals in German occupied Poland. From 04.1941 also mentally ill and „disabled” (i.e. unable to work) prisoners held in German concentration camps were included in the program — denoted then as „Aktion 14 f 13”. C. 20,000 inmates were then murdered, including Polish catholic priests held in KL Dachau concentration camp, who were murdered in Hartheim gas chambers. The other „regional extension” of Aktion T4 was „Aktion Brandt” program during which Germans murdered chronically ill patients in order to make space for wounded soldiers. It is estimated that at least 30,000 were murdered in this program. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.31])

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:
www.niedziela.diecezja.torun.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.05.19], www.straty.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.03.14], www.kpbc.ukw.edu.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.04]