function

diocesan priest

creed

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

diocese / province

Lviv archdiocesemore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]

honorary titles

prelatemore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.11.14]
Rochettum et Mantolettum canonmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.11.14]
Gold „Cross of Merit”more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2019.04.16]

date and place
of death

16.04.1943

KL Flossenbürgconcentration camp
today: n. Weiden in der Oberpfalz, Upper Palatinate reg., Bavaria state, Germany
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.05.20]

details of death

prisoner camp's numbers

14895 (KL FlossenbürgClick to display the description), 1489 (KL Lublin (Majdanek)Click to display the description)

cause of death

extermination

perpetrators

Germans

sites and events

KL FlossenbürgClick to display the description, KL Lublin (Majdanek)Click to display the description, KołomyjaClick to display the description, Lviv (Brygidki)Click to display the description, VL BelzecClick to display the description, Help to the JewsClick 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

13.08.1889

Rojówkatoday: Skrzętla‐Rojówka, Łososina Dolna gm., Nowy Sącz pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.28]

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

07.07.1918 (Lviv cathedralmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.07.17])

positions held

others related
in death

CHŁOPECKIClick to display biography Romualdo, KOŚMIDERClick to display biography Adalbert, ARCHUTOWSKIClick to display biography Roman, KAŚCIŃSKIClick to display biography Leopold, KOWCZClick to display biography Emilian, KOZŁOWSKIClick to display biography Valery, LESZCZYKClick to display biography Anthony, MODRZEWSKAClick to display biography Hedwig Joanna Gabrielle, NIEROSTEKClick to display biography Joseph, OSIKOWICZClick to display biography Andrew, TROCHAClick to display biography Peter (Bro. Adalbert Marian)

sites and events
descriptions

KL Flossenbürg: German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL, founded in 05.1938, where a total of approx. 96,000 prisoners were held captive. In 1942 it became the „mother camp” for many external commandos and sub‐camps whose prisoners worked as slaves for the needs of the German arms industry. On 09.04.1945 Germans executed in the camp several people related to 20.07.1944 assassination plot on Hitler, including Wilhelm Canaris, Hans Oster and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. On 20.04.1945, facing the approach of the Allied troops, about 22,000 prisoners were marched out in the so‐called „Death March” to KL Dachau. Over 7,000 perished along the way. The camp was liberated on 23.04.1945 by American troops. In total, 30,000‐77,000 prisoners died in the camp, including up to 17,000 Poles. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.05.20])

KL Lublin (Majdanek): Operational in 1941‐1944, in Majdanek village n. Lublin, German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL and „death” camp. Prisoners were not only local, from Lublin region, but from all over pre‐war Poland and from abroad. Most of them were Jewish, but also member of Polish clandestine resistance (part of Polish Clandestine State), Polish intelligentsia, Russian POWs, inhabitants of Zamość area evicted by the Germans, people captured in round‐ups in Polish towns and cities. 6% of the prisoners were children 14 years old and younger. Prisoners slaved at c. 16 sub‐camps working for German companies, such as Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW). Altogether c. 150,000 people were held in the camp. C. 79,000 victims were murdered, among them c. 59,000 Jews. The camp was equipped with 5 gas chambers, where prisoners were mass murdered, using gas from bottles or from capsules of Zyklon B. (more on: www.majdanek.euClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10])

Kołomyja: Detention center in the years 1939‐1941 — after the outbreak of World War II — and after 1944 managed by the Russian occupier. The genocidal NKVD „extorted confessions through torture, such as beating with hard and sharp instruments, as well as kicking and pushing down stairs”. In the years 1941‐1944 managed by the German occupier.

Lviv (Brygidki): Penal prison, then at 34 Kazimierzowska Str. in Lviv — in the buildings of the former monastery of the Order of St Brigid, in 1784 — after the first partition of Poland and after the dissolution of the religious orders as part of the so—called Josephine dissolutions — converted by the partitioning Austrian authorities into a prison. In 1939‐1941, the Russians held there thousands of prisoners, most of them Poles. On c. 26.06.1941, in the face of the German invasion and attack of their erstwhile ally, the Russians, during a panic escape (the left Lviv exactly on 26.06.1941), genocideally murdered several thousand prisoners. In 1941‐1944 the prison was run by the Germans and mass murders of Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian civilians took place there. After start of another Russian occupation in 1941 prison in which the executions were carried out on prisoners sentenced to death. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.09.21])

VL Belzec: German Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. extermination camp) VL — oficially known as SS‐Sonderkommando Belzec — operational from 03.1942 till 06.1943 n. Belzec village, c. 4 km to the south of Tomaszów Lubelski, founded as part of German „Reinhardt” program of extermination of Jewish population. Victims were mainly Polish Jews from ghettos and camps in German‐run General Governorate, mainly from Galicia, Cracow and Lublin districts; but also Austrian, Czech, German, Slovak and Hungarian Jews. The victims were murdered in stationary gas chambers with exhaust fumes. The number of exterminated is estimated to reach c. 450,000. The camp was run by c. 20. German and Austrian SS functionaries at any one time. They were supported by a company of watchmen (Germ. SS‐Wachmannschaften) — mainly former Russian POWs who switched sides, in general of Ukrainian nationality. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2020.02.08])

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.

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:
cracovia-leopolis.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.06], www.sprawiedliwi.org.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.04.18], www.straty.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.04.18]
bibliographical:
„Register of Latin rite Lviv metropolis clergy’s losses in 1939‐45”, Józef Krętosz, Maria Pawłowiczowa, editors, Opole, 2005
„Biographical lexicon of Lviv Roman Catholic Metropoly clergy victims of the II World War 1939‐1945”, Mary Pawłowiczowa (ed.), Fr Joseph Krętosz (ed.), Holy Cross Publishing, Opole, 2007
„Schematismus Universi Saecularis et Regularis Cleri Archi Diaeceseos Metropol. Leopol. Rit. Lat.”, Lviv Metropolitan Curia, from 1860 till 1938
„Mysterium iniquitatis. Clergy and religious of the Latin rite murdered by Ukrainian nationalists in 1939‐1945”, Fr Józef Marecki, Institute of National Remembrance IPN, Kraków 2020
original images:
audiovis.nac.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.11.06], www.lwowiacy.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2020.07.31]