Roman Catholic
St Sigismund parish
05-507 Słomczyn
85 Wiślana Str.
Konstancin deanery
Warsaw archdiocese, Poland
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Martyrology of the clergy — Poland
XX century (1914 – 1989)
personal data
surname
NIECHAJ
forename(s)
Michael (pl. Michał)
function
diocesan priest
creed
Latin (Roman Catholic) Church RCmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]
diocese / province
Lublin diocesemore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]
academic distinctions
Doctor of Sacred Theology and Eastern Theology
date and place
of death
23.12.1939
Lublintoday: Lublin city pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20]
alt. dates and places
of death
25.12.1939
details of death
After German and Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and start of the World War II, after start of German occupation, arrested by the Germans on 09.11.1939.
Jailed in Castle prison in Lublin.
On 23.12.1939 — on Christmas Eve, because according to Canon Law, if 24.12 fell on Sunday, then the Christmas Eve was moved to the previous day — taken out of the cell.
Hit hard with a rifle butt.
Driven out of prison on a lorry, together with c. 9 Polish fellow prisoners: 2 judges, 2 lawyers, 1 professor at the Catholic University of Lublin (Fr Ceslav Martyniak), 2 starosts and 2 directors.
Murdered with them all at c. 17:00, in the old Jewish cemetery on Kalinowszczyzna in Lublin, probably by collaborating with Germans Ukrainian nationalists.
Apparently was still alive when buried in mass grave.
cause of death
mass murder
perpetrators
Germans / Ukrainians
sites and events
Lublin (Castle)Click to display the description, 11.1939 arrests (Lublin)Click to display the description, «Intelligenzaktion»Click 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
26.07.1900
SzczebrzeszynBłonie district
today: Szczebrzeszyn gm., Zamość pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20]
presbyter (holy orders)
ordination
1924
positions held
1929 – 1939
professor — Lublintoday: Lublin city pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20] ⋄ Theological Seminary — also: director of library in the seminary
c. 1938 – c. 1939
lecturer — Lublintoday: Lublin city pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20] ⋄ dogmatics, Catholic University of Lublin KUL [i.e. Catholic University of Lublin KUL (since 1928) / clandestine Catholic University of Lublin KUL (1939‐1944) / University of Lublin (1918‐1928)]
c. 1938 – 1939
editor — „Lublin Diocesan News”
1934 – c. 1937
assistant — Lublintoday: Lublin city pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20] ⋄ dogmatics, Catholic University of Lublin KUL [i.e. Catholic University of Lublin KUL (since 1928) / clandestine Catholic University of Lublin KUL (1939‐1944) / University of Lublin (1918‐1928)]
1935 – c. 1936
prefect — Lublintoday: Lublin city pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20] ⋄ Lower Theological Seminary i.e. Bishop's Gymnasium
c. 1935
rector — Lublintoday: Lublin city pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20] ⋄ Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Victorious RC church ⋄ Lublintoday: Lublin city pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20] RC deanery
c. 1932 – c. 1934
prefect — Lublintoday: Lublin city pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20] ⋄ Lower Theological Seminary i.e. Bishop's Gymnasium
1931
curatus/rector/expositus — Horodłotoday: Horodło gm., Hrubieszów pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.09.29] ⋄ St Nicholas the Bishop and Confessor RC church ⋄ Our Lady of the Rosary and St Jack the Confessor RC parish ⋄ Hrubieszówtoday: Hrubieszów urban gm., Hrubieszów pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20] RC deanery
1924 – 1929
PhD student — Rometoday: Rome prov., Lazio reg., Italy
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.12.18] ⋄ theology, „Gregorianum” [i.e. Lat. Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana (Eng. Pontifical Gregorian University)] — Doctor of Sacred Theology degree conferred on 08.10.1927
till 1924
student — Lublintoday: Lublin city pov., Lublin voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.08.20] ⋄ philosophy and theology, Theological Seminary
theological writer and ecumenical activist
author of i.a. Lat. „Oratio liturgica Pro defunctis in Ecclesia Russa Orthodoxa: exquisitio dogmatic” (Eng. „Liturgical prayer for the dead in the Russian Orthodox Church: a dogmatic examination”), Lublin 1933
others related
in death
CIEŚLIKClick to display biography Stanislav, GINTOWT–DZIEWAŁTOWSKIClick to display biography Peter, GORALClick to display biography Vladislav, HUNICZClick to display biography Anthony, KOSIORClick to display biography Vaclav Justin, LENARTClick to display biography John, MICHALEWSKIClick to display biography John, MYSAKOWSKIClick to display biography Stanislav Francis, OCHALSKIClick to display biography Zdislav Anthony, POBOŻYClick to display biography Anthony, SUROWSKIClick to display biography Dominic, SZYSZKOClick to display biography Louis, WOJSAClick to display biography Stanislav, ZAWISTOWSKIClick to display biography Anthony
sites and events
descriptions
Lublin (Castle): During World War II, the Germ. Gefängnis der Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienst Lublin (Eng. Police and Security Service SD Prison), through which c. 40,000‐80,000 Poles passed during the German occupation, mostly members of Polish clandestine independence organizations (part of the Polish Clandestine State), before being sent by the Germans to concentration camps. The inmates were held in inhumane conditions, in overcrowded cells — up to 3,000 were held at one time in the prison designed for 700 people — where they were starved, harassed, and disease was rampant. During interrogations were tortured. Many were murdered — the prison housed the genocidal Germ. Sondergericht (Eng. special court), which issued serial death sentences after a trial lasting several minutes. C. 2,200 perished during the investigation or in the prison; 4,500 were murdered in secret executions in the vicinity of Lublin. When the Russians were fast approached Lublin in 08.1944, c. 1,500 prisoners were sent to the KL Lublin concentration camp, where were murdered, and on 22.07.1944, after a few hours prior to escape, c. 300 remaining were murdered in the prison itself. After the expulsion of the Germans in 1944, the prison was first run by Russians, then UB, the Polish branch of the Russian NKVD, and 32,000‐33,000 soldiers of the Home Army AK, part of the Polish Clandestine State, and the National Armed Forces NSZ, fighting against the Russian occupation, were detained there (in similar conditions to the Germans — in 04.1945 c. 8,000 people were held in the prison) and tortured. C. 515 were sentenced to death and 333 were murdered. The prison began to be liquidated in 02.1954. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30])
11.1939 arrests (Lublin): As part of «Intelligenzaktion» — extermination of Polish leading classes — that in Lublin took form of Sonderaktion Lublin (Eng. Action Special Lublin) on 11.1939 c. 2,000 intellectuals from Lublin were arrested by the Germans. On 11.11.1939 Germans entered Lublin Catholic University KUL and arrested 15 professors and lecturers of Lublin Theological Seminary. On 17.11.1939 Lublin ordinary, Bp Marian Fulman, his deputy Bp Vladislav Goral and 11 other clerics were arrested. Curial building got robbed. In 11.1939 Germans formally closed KUL off, as well as Lublin schools and theatres. Altogether c. 100 clerics from Lublin and vicinity were arrested. All were locked in Castle prison in Lublin. On 27.11.1939 13 priests were sentenced by German Sondergericht (Eng. special court) to death. Those sentences were commuted later to life imprisonment. Most of the priests were on 04.12.1939 transported to KL Sachsenhausen concentration camp and from there to KL Dachau concentration camp. Many were murdered. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.03.14])
«Intelligenzaktion»: (Eng. „Action Intelligentsia”) — extermination program of Polish elites, mainly intelligentsia, executed by the Germans right from the start of the occupation in 09.1939 till around 05.1940, mainly on the lands directly incorporated into Germany but also in the so‐called Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate) where it was called «AB‐aktion». During the first phase right after start of German occupation of Poland implemented as Germ. Unternehmen „Tannenberg” (Eng. „Tannenberg operation”) — plan based on proscription lists of Poles worked out by (Germ. Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen), regarded by Germans as specially dangerous to the German Reich. List contained names of c. 61,000 Poles. Altogether during this genocide Germans methodically murdered c. 50,000 teachers, priests, landowners, social and political activists and retired military. Further 50,000 were sent to concentration camps where most of them perished. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.04])
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:
horajec.republika.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], pl.scribd.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.05.19], www.straty.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.04.18], www.kul.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.08.14]
original images:
www.kul.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.10.13], www.miejscapamiecinarodowej.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.08.14], www.miejscapamiecinarodowej.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.05.09]
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