function

diocesan priest

creed

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

diocese / province

Gniezno and Poznań archdiocese (aeque principaliter)more on
www.archpoznan.pl
[access: 2012.11.23]
RC Military Ordinariate of Polandmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.12.20]

date and place
of death

06.08.1943

KL Gusen Iconcentration camp
today: n. Sankt Georgen an der Gusen, Perg dist., Salzburg state, Austria
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.09]

details of death

prisoner camp's numbers

25159 (KL Mauthausen‐GusenClick to display the description)

cause of death

extermination

perpetrators

Germans

sites and events

KL Gusen IClick to display the description, KL Mauthausen‐GusenClick to display the description, IL LubinClick to display the description, KL PosenClick to display the description, SPL PosenClick to display the description, UH PosenClick to display the description, 02‐03.1940 arrests (Warthegau)Click to display the description, Reichsgau WarthelandClick to display the description, «Intelligenzaktion»Click to display the description, Ribbentrop‐MolotovClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description

date and place
of birth

11.01.1899

Gąskitoday: Gniewkowo gm., Inowrocław pov., Kuyavia‐Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.12.18]

parents

ZIMNY Charles
🞲 30.01.1870, Modliborzycetoday: Dąbrowa Biskupia gm., Inowrocław pov., Kuyavia‐Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2025.01.20] — 🕆 ?, ?

MAREK Marianne
🞲 31.12.1874, Brudniatoday: Dąbrowa Biskupia gm., Inowrocław pov., Kuyavia‐Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.07.18] — 🕆 ?, ?

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

18.10.1925

positions held

sites and events
descriptions

KL Gusen I: German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL „Grade III” (Germ. „Stufe III”), part of KL Mauthausen‐Gusen complex, intended for the „Incorrigible political enemies of the Reich”. The prisoners slaved at a nearby granite quarry, but also in local private companies: at SS guards houses' construction at a nearby Sankt Georgen for instance. Initially opened in 05.1940 as the „camp for Poles”, captured during the program of extermination of Polish intelligentsia («Intelligenzaktion»). Till the end most of the prisoners were Poles. Many Polish priests from the Polish regions incorporated in the Germany were brought there in 1940, after start of German occupation of Poland, from KL Sachsenhausen and KL Dachau concentration camps. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.03.10])

KL Mauthausen‐Gusen: A large group of German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL camps set up around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, c. 30 km east of Linz, operational from 1938 till 05.1945. Over time it became of the largest labour camp complexes in the German‐controlled part of Europe encompassing four major camps concentration camps (KL Mauthausen, KL Gusen I, KL Gusen II and KL Gusen III) and more than 50 sub‐camps where inmates slaved in quarries — the granite extracted, previously used to pave the streets of Vienna, was intended for a complete reconstruction of major German towns according to the plans of the chief architect of National Socialist Germany, the Germ. Generalbauinspektor für die Reichshauptstadt (Eng. General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital) and from 1942 also, i.a. the Germ. Reichsminister für Bewaffnung und Munition (Eng. Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition), Albert Speer — munitions factories, mines, arms factories and Me 262 fighter‐plane assembly plants. The complex served the needs of the German war machine and also carried out extermination through labour. Initially did not have a its own gas chamber and the intended victims were mostly moved to the infamous euthanasia center in the Schloss Hartheim castle w Alkoven, 40.7 km east, or killed by lethal injection and cremated in the local crematorium. Later a van with the exhaust pipe connected to the inside shuttled between KL Mauthausen and KL Gusen. In 12.1941 a permanent gas chamber was built. C. 122,000‐360,000 of prisoners perished. Many Polish priests were held, including those captured during the program of extermination of Polish intelligentsia («Intelligenzaktion»). The camp complex was founded and run as a source for cheap labour for private enterprise. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.03.10])

IL Lubin: The Gestapo District Office in Poznań issued on 13.12.1939 executive instruction Ref. IIB No. 406/39 Tgb. No. 3045/39, ordering: „Based on the regulation of the Germ. Höherer SS‐ und Polizeiführer (Eng. Higher Commander of the SS and Police) [of the Germ. Warthegau (Eng. Greater Poland)] province of 12.11.1939 [SS‐Gruppenführer Wilhelm Koppe], apart from Poles and Jews, also Catholic clergy will be expelled. Action against this group of people should be carried out in such a way that internment and transport are separate […] C. 80% of Catholic clergy are expected to be expelled. The selection based on political threat posed. Internees cannot be placed in regular transit camps due to the possibility of international protest. Catholic clergy should be interned in men's monasteries and held there till mass transportation out”. And so at the Benedictine abbey in Lubiń near Kościan, at the beginning of 1940, the Germans — Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. Gestapo — organized an temporary Germ. „Internierungslager” (Eng. „Internment camp”) IL Lubin for priests and friars from Greater Poland (dated from 15.02.1940, although the Germans brought several priests to the abbey earlier). E.g. in 04.1941 Franciscan friars from Goruszki monastery were brought in. In total, 104 clergymen were held in the monastery. On 06.10.1941, as part of the third great operation of arrests of the Polish clergy of Greater Poland — more precisely, from the Germ. Warthegau occupational province — all interned priests were transported to the KL Dachau concentration camp. Religious brothers were allowed to return to their family homes. The monastery was turned into an old people's home, and later as a training center for national‐socialist German youth, Germ. „Hitler‐Jugend” (Eng. „Hitler youth”). Rich library collections and other goods were plundered. The Benedictines returned to the monastery on 25.01.1945, after the German defeat. (more on: www.benedyktyni.netClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10], pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10])

KL Posen: The German camp established at Fort VII of the former Prussian Germ. Festung Posen (Eng. Poznań Fortress), built in 1876‐1880 in Poznań, formally until mid‐11.1939 operating as the Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL Posen, a term used in «Liber Albus» also for the later period of the camp's operation. It was the first such camp established by the Germans on Polish soil — in the case of Greater Poland, incorporated directly into the German state in 1939. As early as 10.1939, at KL Posen, the Germans for the first time used gas to murder Polish civilians, particularly psychiatric patients. Its first commandant was the génocidaire SS‐Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange, who later used his acquired „experience” in murdering Poles to murder Jews, i.e. to establish the first — even before the start of genocidal program Germ. „Endlösung der Judenfrage” (Eng. „Final Solution of the Jewish Question") — Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. extermination camp) VL Kulmhof in Chełm on River Ner. From 11.1939, the camp functioned as a prison for the Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. Gestapo, and as the Germ. Übergangslager (Eng. transit camp), before dispatching prisoners to concentration camps such as KL Dachau or KL Auschwitz. On 28.05.1941, the camp was renamed a police prison and correctional slave labor camp, Germ. Arbeitserziehungslager (Eng. labor and education camp), i.e. AEL. At its peak, the camp carried out seven to nine executions daily, with prisoners being hanged en masse, and some being taken to executions outside the camp grounds. In total, the Germans murdered c. 20,000 residents of Greater Poland at KL Posen, including many members of the Polish intelligentsia, officials, landed gentry, participants in the 1918‐1919 Greater Poland Uprising, patients and staff of psychiatric hospitals, and more than a dozen priests. Hundreds of Catholic priests passed through the camp before being sent to concentration camps, primarily KL Dachau. From 03.1943, the period of transformation of the camp into industrial plants of the German armaments industry began (e.g. from 25.04.1944, the Telefunken Gesellschaft für drahtlose Telegraphie m.b.H. factory, manufacturing radio i.a. for submarines and aircraft). (more on: www.wmn.poznan.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.02.02], en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.12.27])

SPL Posen: Germ. Staatpolizeileitstelle Posen (Eng. Poznań State Police Command Centre), founded on 07.11.1939 — in the Soldier's House at 1 Niezłomnych Str. — by the Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. Gestapo, after taking over the building from the Germ. Einsatzgruppe VI der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (Eng. Task Group VI of the Security Police and SD), which had its HQ there from 12.09.1939, the day the Germans captured Poznań. The Centre performed a superior function to Gestapo offices in the entire Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland (Eng. Warta Country Reich District). It housed the Germ. Hausgefängnis (Eng. house arrest). In the basement, on the bare floor, 40‐120 prisoners were held in shackles. In the rooms on the floors, long interrogations were conducted, during which confessions of guilt and signing of protocols were forced by torture. The Germ. Polizeistandgericht (Eng. police summary court) operated there as well, with unlimited competences — the sentences issued were not subject to appeal. Those convicted of „lesser crimes” were transported to the KL Posen concentration camp, and then to other concentration camps. Those sentenced to death were taken to the UH Posen prison on Młyńska Str., where the sentences were carried out. On 20.01.1945, in the face of the Russian offensive, the Germans began the evacuation of the Centre, and on 02.02.1945 they partially blew up the building. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30])

UH Posen: Germ. Untersuchungshaftanstalt Posen (Eng. Poznań Detention Centre), run by the Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. Gestapo, at 1 Młyńska Str. in Poznań. Death sentences by guillotine and hanging were also carried out there — in total, during World War II, the Germans are said to have murdered at least 1,639 people there (1,532 men, 93 women and 14 children — people under the age of 18), including c. 1,400 people who were probably killed by guillotine. Convicts in custody were greeted: Germ. „Wir werden auch mit dir fertig sein — Kopf herunter” (Eng. „We will finish you too — keep your head down”). Sentences were usually carried out on Tuesdays and Fridays, around on 06:00. According to the testimony of one of the German executioners: „Two assistants took the condemned by the arms and led him to a bench, where they laid him face down. The head stuck out above the bathtub. A special board pressed the condemned man's neck. At the prosecutor's call, the executioner dropped a knife weighing 2–3 hundredweight. The severed head fell into the bathtub”. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.10.05])

02‐03.1940 arrests (Warthegau): The first large wave of arrests of Polish Catholic priests from German‐occupied Greater Poland, transformed into the German province of Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland (Eng. Warta Country Reich District), began in principle already in 01.1940, but the largest number of priests were detained in 02‐03.1940. One of the pillars of the policy of the Germ. Gauleiter (Eng. district leader), the criminal Arthur Greiser, who sought to transform the province under his control into a Germ. „Mustergau” (Eng. model district), was the German postulate „Ohne Gott, ohne Religion, ohne Priesters und Sakramenten” („without God, without religion, without priest and sacrament”). Its implementation was the arrest of several hundred Catholic priests and their detention — before being deported to concentration camps deep in Germany — in transit camps in Puszczykowo, IL Lubin in Lubiń, IL Bruckau in Bruczków, IL Görchen in Goruszki, IL Chludowo in Chludowo and the KL Posen concentration (Fort VII) camp in Poznań.

Reichsgau Wartheland: 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. Greater Poland 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 24.01.1940 transformed into the Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland (Eng. Warta Country Reich District), 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 90% of its inhabitants were Poles, was Germ. „Entpolonisierung” (Eng. „Depolonisation”), i.e. forced Germanization. C. 100,000 Poles were murdered as part of the Germ. „Intelligenzaktion”, i.e. extermination of Polish intelligentsia and ruling classes. C. 630,000 were forcibly resettled to the Germ. Generalgouvernement, and their place taken by the Germans brought from other areas occupied by Germany (e.g. the Baltic countries, Bessarabia, Bukovina, etc.). Poles were forced to sign the German nationality list, the Germ. Deutsche Volksliste DVL. As part of the policy of „Ohne Gott, ohne Religion, ohne Priesters und Sakramenten” (Eng. „No God, no religion, no priest or sacrament”) most Catholic priests were arrested and sent to concentration camps. All schools teaching in Polish, Polish libraries, theaters and museums were closed. Polish landed estates confiscated. To further reduce the number of the Polish population, Poles were sent to forced labor deep inside Germany, and the legal age of marriage for Poles was increased (25 for women, 28 for men). The German state office, Germ. Rasse‐ und Siedlungshauptamt (Eng. Main Office of Race and Settlement) RuSHA, under the majesty of German law, abducted several thousand children who met specific racial criteria from Polish families and subjected them to forced Germanization, handing them over to German families. 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, Arthur Karl Greiser, was executed. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2024.06.21])

«Intelligenzaktion»: German: «Intelligenzaktion» (English: „Intelligence Action”) — a German program of extermination of the Polish elite, mainly the intelligentsia and leadership layers, carried out from the beginning of the occupation in w 09.1939 to 04.1940, mainly in territories directly annexed to Germany, but also in the so‐called Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), where it was called «AB‐aktion». In the first phase, immediately after the beginning of the German occupation, during military operations carried out by the Germ. Wehrmacht (Eng. Armed Forces) and the genocidal units of the Germ. Einsatzgruppen (Eng. Operational Groups) of the Germ. Sicherheitspolizei (Eng. Security Police), i.e. SiPo, and Germ. Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers SS (Eng. Security Service of the Reichsführer SS), i.e. SD, organized by the Germ. Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Eng. Reich Main Security Office), i.e. RSHA, which followed the troops, carried out under the Germ. Unternehmen „Tannenberg” (Eng. Operation „Tannenberg”) — based on the so‐called Germ. Sonderfahndungsliste (Eng. Special Wanted Lists), i.e. proscription lists of Poles considered particularly dangerous to the Third Reich, prepared by the Zentralstelle II/P (Polen) unit of the German RSHA. Later, implemented by the German civilian occupation authorities and the genocidal unit of the Germ. Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz (Eng. Ethnic Germans Self‐Defense), whose members were Germ. Volksdeutsche (Eng. Ethnic Germans), i.e. representatives of the German minority in Poland. According to various sources, these lists, at the beginning of 09.1939, could have contained the details of 61,000—88,000 „dangerous” Poles — although these figures cannot be confirmed. In total, during this genocide, c. 50,000 teachers, Catholic priests, representatives of the landed gentry, freelancers, social and political activists, and retired military personnel were systematically and methodically murdered. Another 50,000 were sent to concentration camps, where only a negligible percentage survived. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.04])

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:
www.wtg-gniazdo.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.03.01], www.przewodnik-katolicki.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.03.01], www.gedenkstaetten.atClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.10.04], www.przewodnik-katolicki.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.03.01]
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
original images:
www.wtg-gniazdo.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.03.01]