function

diocesan priest

creed

Latin (Roman Catholic) Church RCmore 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

10.1939

Mniszek ‐ Grupa foresttoday: Dragacz gm., Świecie pov., Kuyavia‐Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.12.18]

alt. dates and places
of death

26.10.1939, 11.1939

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

details of death

cause of death

mass murder

perpetrators

Germans

sites and events

Mniszek / Grupa forestClick to display the description, Górna GrupaClick to display the description, Szpęgawski forestClick to display the description, ZL MeweClick to display the description, «Intelligenzaktion»Click to display the description, Reichsgau Danzig‐WestpreußenClick to display the description, Ribbentrop‐MolotovClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description, Pomeranian PhilomathsClick to display the description

date and place
of birth

17.02.1888

Brzozieform.: Brzozie Polskie
today: Brzozie gm., Brodnica pov., Kuyavia‐Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.09.02]

parents

WOJTASZEWSKI Bernard
🞲 ?, ? — 🕆 ?, ?

SZCZEPANKOWSKA Adele
🞲 ?, ? — 🕆 ?, ?

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

29.03.1914

Pelplintoday: Pelplin gm., Tczew pov., Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.05.06]
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary RC cathedral churchmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2025.03.14]

positions held

biography (own resources)

Click to read biography details from our resources

others related
in death

BERTELClick to display biography Ceslav, BORUCKIClick to display biography, BRZÓSKOWSKIClick to display biography Vladislav, BURDYNClick to display biography Bernard Frederick, BUSSClick to display biography Casimir, CZOGAŁAClick to display biography Ignatius, ZNANIECKIClick to display biography Sebastian, ECHAUSTClick to display biography Bruno, HOŁUBOWSKIClick to display biography Bonaventure, JAKUBIAKClick to display biography Boleslav, KNEBLEWSKIClick to display biography Vaclav, KOTEWICZClick to display biography Stanislav, KOWALClick to display biography Henry Stanislav, KUCZYŃSKIClick to display biography Marian, MAKOWSKIClick to display biography Roman, MALORNYClick to display biography Francis, MAŃKIEWICZClick to display biography Henry, MEGGERClick to display biography Vladislav, MIKUCZEWSKIClick to display biography Louis, NODZYŃSKIClick to display biography Andrew, PEŁKAClick to display biography Leo, REPIŃSKIClick to display biography Sigismund Louis, ROGALSKIClick to display biography John, SOŁTYSIAKClick to display biography John, WALECKIClick to display biography Vaclav, ŻUKOWSKIClick to display biography Vincent, BOKClick to display biography Francis, KĄDZIELAClick to display biography Alphonse, SZYBOWSKIClick to display biography Francis, ZIELIŃSKIClick to display biography Heliodorus

sites and events
descriptions

Mniszek / Grupa forest: From 10.1939 till c. 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 (as VSH Schwetz custody), 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 Divine Word Missionaries SVD 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 Volksdeutscher 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: groby.radaopwim.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.13], pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19])

Górna Grupa: From 10.1939 till approx. 04.1940 in Górna Grupa in Divine Word Missionaries SVD congregation house Germans organised — as part of «Intelligenzaktion», extermination of Polish intelligentsia in Pomerania — a transit camp for Poles, including 95 priests, from Świecie, Bydgoszcz, Chełmno, Grudziądz and Starogard Gdański counties. Approx. of them perished, including 17 that were subsequently executed in Mnichek‐Grupa. In the same place in 1945 Russians set up a concentration camp for Germans, among whom two priests perished. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19], www.kpbc.ukw.edu.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.12.27])

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 «Aktion T4», 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 World War II 39 mass graves were found. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.09.23])

ZL Mewe: Zivilgefangenenlager (Eng. POW camp for civilians) Mewe — known also as Germ. Umsiedlungslager (Eng. resettlement camp). Operated in Gniew from 02.11.1939 to 02.1940 — though even before, i.e. in 10.1939, arrested Polish Catholic priests were held in Gniew prison, among others. It was located in the basement and halls of the partially destroyed Gniew Castle, in the barracks courtyard and in the prison. Members of the genocidal German organization Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz (Eng. Self‐Defense) guarded the camp. C. 2,000 Poles (women, children and men) arrested in Gniew, Tczew (in the „Arkona”), factory), Pelplin and Gdańsk passed through the camp. Some of the prisoners were taken from the camp to the Szpęgawski Forests and murdered there, others were murdered within the castle itself — as part of the «Intelligenzaktion», i.e. an action to exterminate the Polish intelligentsia and leadership classes. (more on: ph.muzeum1939.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.12.09])

«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])

Reichsgau Danzig‐Westpreußen: 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. Vistula Pomerania 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 02.11.1939 transformed into the Germ. Reichsgau Danzig‐Westpreußen (Eng. Reich District of Gdańsk‐West Prussia) 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 85% of its inhabitants were Poles, was Germ. „Entpolonisierung” (Eng. „Depolonisation”), i.e. forced Germanization. C. 60,000 Poles were murdered in 1939‐1940, as part of the Germ. „Intelligenzaktion”, i.e. extermination of Polish intelligentsia and ruling classes, in c. 432 places of mass executions — including c. 220 Polish Catholic priests. The same number were sent to German concentration camps, from where few returned (over 300 priests were arrested, of whom c. 130 died in concentration camps). C. 124,000‐170,000 were displaced, including c. 90,000 to the Germ. Generalgouvernement. Poles were forced en masse to sign the German nationality list, the Germ. Deutsche Volksliste DVL. Polish children could only learn in German. It was forbidden to use the Polish language during Catholic Holy Masses and during confession. Polish landed estates were confiscated..To further reduce the number of the Polish population, Poles were sent to forced labor deep inside Germany. The remaining Poles were treated as low‐skilled labor, isolated from the Germans and strictly controlled — legally, three or three of them could only meet together, even in their own apartments. Many were conscripted into the German Wehrmacht army. 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, Albert Maria Forster, was executed. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2024.06.24])

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])

Pomeranian Philomaths: Secret societies of Polish youth, aiming at self‐education, patriotic in form and content, functioning 1830‐1920, mainly in secondary schools — gymnasia — in Pomerania around Vistula river (Gdańsk Pomerania and Chełmno county), in Prussian‐occupied Polish territories (one of the partitions of Poland). On 08.01.1901 Germans conducted a series of interrogations of students at Chełmno, Brodnica and Toruń gymnasiums. On 09‐12.09.1901 the first of court trials of Polish students from those gymnasiums and students of Theological Seminary in Pelplin was held in Toruń. 1 person was sentenced to 3 months in prison, 1 to 2 months, 3 to 6 weeks, 7 to 3 weeks, 2 to 2 weeks, 19 to a week, 2 to 1 day, 10 were reprimanded. 15 were cleared. More definitive penalties were relegations from the schools with so‐called wolf’s ticket, forbidding sentenced students to continue secondary and higher studies in Prussia (Germany). Among those penalized were a few future Catholic priests — those were able to continue their education for the Chełmno diocese bishop, Bp August Rosentreter, refused to relegate students from Theological Seminary. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.11.18])

sources

personal:
www.kpbc.ukw.edu.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.04]
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
„Biographical dictionary of priests of the Chełmno diocese ordained in the years 1821‐1920”, Henry Mross, Pelplin, 1995
original images:
www.youtube.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19], archiwum.allegro.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.11.18], issuu.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.11.18], www.tczewska.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.04]