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
FRALA
forename(s)
Miechyslav (pl. Mieczysław)
function
religious seminarian
creed
Latin (Roman Catholic) Church RCmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]
congregation
Congregation of Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate OMImore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]
(i.e. Oblates)
diocese / province
Polish province OMI
date and place
of death
09.12.1941
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]
alt. dates and places
of death
TA HartheimSchloß Hartheim „euthanasia” center
today: Alkoven, Eferding dist., Salzburg state, Austria
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.07.18]
details of death
On c. 27.08.1939, due to the exacerbation of the political situation (the Polish army was being mobilized from 24.08.1939, general mobilization was announced on 30.08.1939), together with seminarians released from Chumiętki monastery — near Polish–German border — with the task to reach other religious houses further east in Poland.
Reached Congregation's house in Markowice.
After German and Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and start of World War II interned by Germans in Markowice monastery.
Forced to slave at local Germans farms.
Arrested by the Germans on 04.05.1940 by the Germans.
Jailed in DL Scheglin transit camp in Szczeglin.
On 09.05.1940 jailed in KL Dachau concentration camp.
One of the foremost experts on KL Dachau, Sr Stephanie A. Hayward OCD, wrote in her book about Blessed Stephen Vincent Frelichowski: „Concentration camps in human history were something previously unseen in such a form and on such a scale — something that had not existed before. Humanity had no experience in dealing with such evil; it lacked even the vocabulary to describe what was happening there, and human imagination was insufficient to fully grasp such things”. Quoted a fellow prisoner at KL Dachau, the Austrian Fr Conrad Just OCist: „There is no atrocity that did not occur in one of the concentration camps”. And added: „It can be said without exaggeration that what took place in the German concentration camps was absolute evil in all its manifestations”.
The first Catholic clergy became prisoners of KL Dachau as early as 1938. They were Austrians imprisoned following the Germ. Anschluss (eng. annexation), i.e. the forced annexation of the Austrian state into the German Reich. In 09.1939, immediately after the outbreak of World War II, Catholic clergy from the Czech lands became victims of KL Dachau; they were transported there as part of Germ. Aktion Albrecht I (Eng. Operation Albrecht I), i.e. a campaign of arrests targeting individuals deemed potentially dangerous in the dict. Germ. Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren (Eng. Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia), an administrative unit established by Germany on 16.03.1939, from the territories of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia, occupied following the Munich Agreement of 30.09.1938 — and, in particular, Polish clergy.
Between 1939 and 1940, the Germans interned clergymen arrested in occupied Polish territories in numerous concentration camps, including KL Stutthof, KL Sachsenhausen, KL Buchenwald, and KL Mauthausen–Gusen. The Holy See intervened, demanding the release of the prisoners — among them several bishops — or their transfer to the German‐occupied and run quasi‐state called the Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. GG, or even permission for them to emigrate to a neutral European country or Latin America. In 06.1940 — at the time of the defeat of France — the Germans rejected these proposals, which had been presented by the Apostolic Nuncio in Berlin, Abp Cesare Orsenigo; they justified their refusal by citing the opinion of the Germ. Generalgouverneur der besetzten Gebiete Polens (Eng. Governor–General of the occupied Polish territories), i.e. GG Governor, a Doctor, you bet!, of Law (the supervisor of his doctoral dissertation, „The Public Legal Entity: A Contribution to the Doctrine of the Characteristics of Public Legal Personality”, was the renowned public law professor of Jewish descent, Walter Jellinek), and a prominent German National Socialist figure — regarding the „anti‐German stance of the Vatican press and radio”. In 11.1940, the Germans made different decision — endorsed by another prominent German National Socialist figure, Reichsführer‐SS Heinrich Luitpold Himmler. The executive order was issued by the head of the Germ. Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Eng. Reich Main Security Office), i.e. RSHA, SS‐Obergruppenführer Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich. On 09.11.1940, in a letter from the Germ. Reichsministerium für die Kirchliche Angelegenheiten (Eng. Reich Ministry for Church Affairs) to Adolf Cardinal Bertram, the Archbishop of Wrocław, one of the paragraphs stated Germ. „Nach einer Entscheidung des Reichsführers SS und Chefs der Deutschen Polizei werden nunmehr sämtliche bisher in verschiedenen Konzentrationslagern untergebrachten Geistlichen im K.L. Dachau zusammengefaßt werden. Dort werden sie nur mit leichten Arbeiten beschäftigt. Auch wird ihnen Gelegenheit gegeben, täglich die Messe zu lesen oder zu besuchen” (Eng. „In accordance with the decision of the Reichsführer‐SS and Chief of the German Police, all clergy previously held in various concentration camps will now be gathered at the Dachau concentration camp. There, they will be assigned only light work. They will also be given the opportunity to celebrate or attend Holy Mass daily”). This measure also applied to military chaplains, constituting a violation of the Hague Convention.
The decision resulted i.a. in the transfer — on 08.12.1940 — of c. 152 members of the clergy from the KL Mauthausen–Gusen concentration camp complex. Of these, 139 were definitively identified as Polish clergy. On 14.12.1940 a transport of c. 527 clergymen — c. 500 among them were Poles — who had been held at the KL Sachsenhausen concentration camp, arrived at KL Dachau. A day earlier, on 12‐13.12.1940, 68 Polish clergymen were brought from the KL Auschwitz concentration camp. In KL Dachau, at the gate bearing the inscription Germ. „Arbeit macht frei” (Eng. „Work sets you free”), they were greeted by one of the deputies to the Germ. Lagerkommandant (Eng. camp commandant), the notorious SS‐Sturmbannführer Alexander Bernhard Hans Piorkowski, with:
„You are in Dachau; no one leaves this place […] This is not a sanatorium. The only way out of here is through the chimney or in a coffin”….
Next on 02.08.1940 transported to KL Gusen I concentration camp — part of KL Mauthausen‐Gusen concentration camps' complex — where slaved in quarries.
One of the co‐prisoners, Fr Ceslav Kozal OMI, recalled the day of 08.09.1940 in KL Gusen I: „The religious scene on the site where the crematorium was erected was vivid. A group of young men surrounds their spiritual Father. The young men are seminarians from the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. They gathered to renew their religious vows on September 8th… In this earthly hell, where hatred, crime and cruelty reign, where sin and Satan hold the scepter of their power, these young boys devote their mind, will and body to the exclusive service of God, under the banner of the Immaculata. The sky must have fallen silent at that moment when tender lips pronounce the words of the oath: «In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin Mary, all the Angels [and] all the Saints, and before you, Father, I promise, I promise and I vow poverty, chastity and obedience, and that I will persevere in the Congregation… So help me God»”.
On 08.12.1940, following a decision to gather all clergy held by the Germans in various camps into one location, transported approximately transported — along with c. 152 other clergymen — back to KL Dachau. Was not among that group, for identified himself as a „Student”, rather than Germ. „Student die Theologie”. The implications of this for those left behind at KL Gusen are best illustrated by the account of Fr Henry Malak, who was brought to KL Dachau a few days later from the KL Sachsenhausen concentration camp: „The transports from Mauthausen and Gusen to Dachau presented a truly wretched sight. Our fellow priests from those camps were so terribly emaciated and ill that they looked more like shadows than human beings […] They were all priests, aged between 27 and their early forties. Looking at these hunched skeletons and gaunt faces — with sunken eyes gleaming with an unhealthy light — it was hard to hold back tears. Seeing what months of labor in the quarries had done to these young men, who, not long ago, had been in the prime of health”.
German formalists, however, soon determined that seminarians — who had not yet received priestly ordination — did not qualify as „members of the clergy”, and was, in all likelihood in 01.1941, transported back to the KL Mauthausen–Gusen concentration camp.
There perished: totally exhausted, categorized as an „invalid”, volunteered to be „taken to a sanatorium”. Driven out of the camp — on a camp record card held by the „Arolsen Archives” institute, the „eminent” representatives of the German „kulturnation” recorded that on 06.12.1941 was Germ. „Überstellt” (Eng. „ transferred”) back to KL Dachau.
Did not reach it: prob. murdered in a gas chamber — the lethal gas, i.e. car fumes, was pumped back into an insulated car.
alt. details of death
Prob. murdered in TA Hartheim Euthanasia Center.
On 24.08.1941, the German National Socialist leader, Adolf Hitler, issued — verbally, as German criminals testified after the end of the war — the Germ. Führerbefehl (Eng. Führer's Order) to halt the state euthanasia program, Germ. «Aktion T4» (Eng. Action T4), i.e. the systematic physical murder of mentally retarded, chronically mentally and neurologically ill people, in accordance with the German state's doctrine, Germ. „Vernichtung von lebensunwertem Leben” (Eng. „elimination of life unworthy of life”). The immediate cause of the Führer's order was a sermon delivered on 03.08.1941, by the bishop of the diocese of Mainz (i.e. Münster), Bl. Clement August Cardinal von Galen, who said, among other things: „Woe to mankind, woe to our German nation if God's Holy Commandment «Thou shalt not kill», which God proclaimed on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and lightning, which God our Creator inscribed in the conscience of mankind from the very beginning, is not only broken, but if this transgression is actually tolerated and permitted to go unpunished”. Von Galen's sermon was de facto the publicization in Germany of the decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office of the Apostolic See, approved on 01.12.1940 by Pope Pius XII and published the next day in „Acta Apostolicae Sedis”, in which, in response to the question of the faithful: „Is it permissible, by order of a public authority, to directly kill those who, although they have not committed a crime deserving of the death penalty, are no longer capable of contributing to the benefit of the nation because of mental or physical infirmities, but are considered a burden to it and an obstacle to its vitality and strength?” the answer was clear: Lat. „Negative, cum sit iuri naturali ac divino positivo contrarium” (Eng. „No, because it is contrary to natural and divine law”). Cardinal von Galen’s protest was, according to a contemporary historian, „the strongest, most explicit and most widespread protest movement against any Nazi policy since the beginning of the Third Reich” in Germany.
Whether the KL Dachau concentration camp prisoners knew about it is difficult to judge. However, they certainly did not know about the continuation of the Germ. «Aktion T4» program, better classified, i.e. program Germ. Sonderbehandlung (Eng. special treatment), known as the Germ. «Aktion 14 f 13» (Eng. „Action 14 f 13”). According to contemporary sources, this codename includes the following coded terms: „14” — meaning concentration camp, „f” — killing, „13” — gassing. The Germ. «Aktion 14 f 13» was intended to cover concentration camp prisoners — the weakest, the sick, the infirm, the old.
In the spring of 1942, the Germans began implementing the German «Aktion 14 f 13» in KL Dachau. It started with the selection of the sickest and most infirm — including many Polish Catholic priests — and transferring them to the Germ. Invalidenblock (Eng. invalids' barracks). The prisoners were given to understand that the reason for their isolation was preparation for transfer to other camps with a lighter regime, referring to them as Germ. Erholungslager (Eng. rest camp), Germ. Genesungslager (Eng. convalescence camp), or even Germ. Sanatorium. Many victims left KL Dachau voluntarily, hoping for an improvement in camp conditions.
Prisoners from KL Dachau were however transported to the Germ. Tötungsanstalt (Eng. Killing/Euthanasia Centre) TA Hartheim, at the Schloß Hartheim castle in Alkoven in Upper Austria, which was part of the KL Mauthausen–Gusen concentration camp complex. In KL Dachau, a selected group of prisoners, called the Germ. Invalidentransporte (Eng. invalid transport), were loaded onto wagons specially provided on a railway siding and then transported — through Munich, where deceased prisoners were unloaded to be cremated in the city's public crematoria, and across the Alps — to Linz in Austria. From there, prob. also by train, they were taken to the Alkoven station, from where they were taken directly to Schloß Hartheim in grey buses operated by the German company Germ. Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH (Eng. Charitable Association for the Transport of the Sick Ltd.), i.e. GeKraT. The same buses, once every two months, the TA Hartheim staff used to go to Linz, to the cinema….
At the post‐war trial, the Austrian Germ. Brenner (Eng. stoker) of TA Hartheim, Vinzenz Nohel, described the last moments of the victims' lives as follows: „The mentally ill were, as far as I know, brought to Hartheim from the various asylums by rail and by car.
The transports arrived at Hartheim at irregular intervals and at no specific hours… The number of arrivals varied from between forty and one hundred and fifty.
First of all, they were sent to the changing room. There the men and women were made to undress or were undressed in two separate areas. Their clothes and any luggage which they had brought with them was placed in a pile, labelled, recorded and numbered.
The unclothed patients then went across a corridor to the dict. registry office. There was a large table in this room and a doctor with a staff of three or four helpers. The doctor on duty there was either Dr. Lonauer or Dr. Renno. As far as I can judge as a layperson, the doctors did not examine the patients; instead they only looked at the files of those who were brought past them. Someone stamped the patients. A nurse had to stamp the individual patients on the shoulder or chest with a consecutive number… Those who had gold teeth or a gold dental bridge were marked with a cross on the back.
Following this procedure the people were taken to an adjacent room where they were photographed. From the photography room they were taken through a second exit back to the registry office and from there through a steel door into the gas chamber. Initially, the gas chamber was very simply furnished… so that one could assume it was a bathroom. There were three shower heads mounted on the ceiling....
Once the entire transport had been processed, i.e. the admissions recorded, the stamping carried out and those persons marked who had gold teeth, everyone was taken to the gas chamber that was disguised as a shower room. The steel doors were closed and the doctor on duty released the gas into the chamber.
Within a short time, the people in the gas chamber were dead”.… Buses arrived in front of a specially constructed wooden annex to Schloß Hartheim, completely hidden from the view of the curious. The gas chamber, c. 2.7 m high, had dimensions of 5.8x3.8 m, and could accommodate a maximum of 150 people. It was located on the ground floor, while the staff quarters and offices were on the first floor of the facility.
The genocide was directed by the Austrian physician Dr Rudolf Lonauer, director of TA Hartheim, who personally ordered the gassing of prisoners using carbon monoxide from gas cylinders. He was often replaced by his deputy, the German Dr Georg Renno. Both boasted — of course! — doctorates: the former studied at the University of Graz; the latter at prestigious German universities in Munich and Heidelberg.
Prob. one of them released gas into the room when the victims were brought into it. The aforementioned Germ. Brenner, Vinzenz Nohel, supplemented his account with the following: „Taking the dead from the gas chamber to the mortuary was a very difficult and nerve‐racking process. It was not easy to separate the corpses, which were stiff and tangled up in one another, and to drag them into the mortuary… In the mortuary the corpses were stacked up. The crematorium was located next to the mortuary. The ovens were fitted with a corpse caddy which could be taken out of the oven. The bodies of the dead were placed on these caddies and then pushed into the crematorium as if into a bakery oven. Depending on the number of dead we incinerated two to eight corpses at a time. The ovens were fuelled with coke.
Work continued night and day as necessary. Before the dead were incinerated the stokers extracted the gold teeth of those who had previously been marked with a cross….
Once the corpses had been incinerated, the remains of the bones which had fallen through the oven grid were placed in a bone crusher and ground to powder. The bone powder obtained in this fashion was then sent to the bereaved relatives as the mortal remains. Approximately 3 kilograms of such ash was calculated for each deceased person”.
The remains of the murdered were not automatically sent to „grieving relatives” ‐ the family had to apply for it and pay inordinately. This, however, did not apply to the Polish priests from KL Dachau.
Their ashes and remains were taken — once a week — to the Danube, c. 3.5 km away, or to the Traun River, c. 10 km away in the opposite direction, and thrown into the water.
prisoner camp's numbers
6159Click to display source page (KL Mauthausen‐GusenClick to display the description), 9109Click to display source page (KL DachauClick to display the description)
cause of death
extermination: gassing in a gas chamber
perpetrators
Germans
sites and events
TA HartheimClick to display the description, «Aktion T4»Click to display the description, KL Gusen IClick to display the description, KL Mauthausen‐GusenClick to display the description, KL DachauClick to display the description, DL ScheglinClick 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
29.10.1920Birth certification on:
photos.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl
[access: 2025.09.18]
Krotoszyntoday: Krotoszyn gm., Krotoszyn pov., Greater Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.07.18]
parents
FRALA Louis
🞲 25.08.1886, Lipowiectoday: Lipówiec, Kobylin gm., Krotoszyn pov., Greater Poland voiv., Poland
more on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2026.10.31] — 🕆 1955, ?
BOROWSKA Francesca
🞲 ?, ? — 🕆 ?, ?
religious vows
1939 (last)
positions held
1939 – 1940
friar — Markowicetoday: Strzelno gm., Mogilno pov., Kuyavia‐Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.07] ⋄ Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Congregation's house, Oblates OMI
1938 – 1939
student — Chumiętkitoday: Krobia gm., Gostyń pov., Greater Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.11.20] ⋄ Higher Theological Seminary i.e. Scholasticate, St John Cantius the Confessor Congregation's house („Krobia”), Oblates OMI — in 1939 second year of philosophy
1937
accession — Oblates OMI
biography (own resources)
Click to read biography details from our resources
others related
in death
CEBULAClick to display biography Joseph, JAŃSKIClick to display biography Louis, MAŃKAClick to display biography Alphonse, SZAMOCKIClick to display biography John
sites and events
descriptions
TA Hartheim: From 05.1940, in the Germ. Tötungsanstalt (Eng. Killing/Euthanasia Center) TA Hartheim, at the Schloß Hartheim castle in Alkoven in Upper Austria, belonging to KL Mauthausen‐Gusen complex of concentration camps, as part of «Aktion T4» program, the Germans murdered victims — people mentally retarded and disabled — in gas chambers with carbon monoxide. Till 24.08.1941 and the formal end of the «Aktion T4» program, c. 18,000 people were murdered in TA Hartheim. In 04.1941 the program was extended to include concentration camp prisoners. Most, if not all, of the murdered clergy from the KL Dachau concentration camp were taken to TA Hartheim in the so‐called Germ. „Invalidentransport” (Eng. „transport of invalids”), prisoners who were sick and, according to the Germans, „unable to work” (initially under the pretext of transfer to a better camp) — after the formal end of «Aktion T4» as part of the program codenamed «Aktion 14 f 13». It is estimated that at this stage — until 11.12.1944 — c. 12,000 prisoners were gassed at TA Hartheim.
Note: The dates of death of victims murdered in Schloß Hartheim indicated in the „White Book” are the dates of deportations from the last concentration camp the victims where held in. The real dates of death are unknown — apart from c. 49 priests whose names were included in the niem. „Invalidentransports”, but who did not arrive at TA Hartheim. Prob. perished on the day of transport, somewhere between KL Dachau and Munich, and their bodies were thrown out of the transport and cremated in Munich. The investigation conducted by Polish Institute of National Remembrance IPN concluded, that the other victims were murdered immediately upon arrival in Schloß Hartheim, bodies cremated and the ashes spread over local fields and into Danube river. In order to hide details of the genocide Germans falsified both dates of death (for instance those entered into KL Dachau concentration camp books, which are presented in „White Book” as alternative dates of death) and their causes. (more on: ipn.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.05.30], en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.05.30])
«Aktion T4»: German state euthanasia program, systematic murder of people mentally retarded, chronically, mentally and neurologically ill — „elimination of live not worth living” (Germ. „Vernichtung von lebensunwertem Leben”). At a peak, in 1940‐1941, c. 70,000 people were murdered, including patients of psychiatric hospitals in German occupied Poland — German formalists noted then that, among others, „performing disinfection [i.e. gassing] of 70,273 people with a life expectancy of up to 10 years saved food in the amount of 141,775,573.80 Deutschmark”. 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])
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])
KL Dachau: KL Dachau in German Bavaria, set up in 1933, became the main German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL for Catholic priests and religious during World War II: On c. 09.11.1940, Reichsführer‐SS Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, Gestapo and German police, as a result of the Vatican's intervention, decided to transfer all clergymen detained in various concentration camps to KL Dachau camp. The first major transports took place on 08.12.1940. In KL Dachau Germans held approx. 3,000 priests, including 1,800 Poles. The priests were forced to slave labor in the Germ. „Die Plantage” — the largest herb garden in Europe, managed by the genocidal SS, consisting of many greenhouses, laboratory buildings and arable land, where experiments with new natural medicines were conducted — for many hours, without breaks, without protective clothing, no food. They slaved in construction, e.g. of camp's crematorium. In the barracks ruled hunger, freezing cold in the winter and suffocating heat during the summer, especially acute in 1941‐1942. Prisoners suffered from bouts of illnesses, including tuberculosis. Many were victims of murderous „medical experiments” — in 11.1942 c. 20 were given phlegmon injections; in 07.1942 to 05.1944 c. 120 were used by for malaria experiments. More than 750 Polish clerics where murdered by the Germans, some brought to TA Hartheim euthanasia centre set up in Schloß Hartheim in Austria and murdered in gas chambers. At its peak KL Dachau concentration camps’ system had nearly 100 slave labour sub‐camps located throughout southern Germany and Austria. There were c. 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands perished without a trace. C. 10,000 of the 30,000 inmates were found sick at the time of liberation, on 29.04.1945, by the USA troops… (more on: www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.deClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10], en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.05.30])
DL Scheglin: Germ. Durchgangslager Scheglin (Eng. Transit Camp) — German camp in Szczeglin n. Mogilno, operational from 01.10.1939 till 15.09.1940. Germans kept there c. 4,600 Poles, forcing them to perform slave labour — before transporting them to concentration camps. Among others on 29.08.1940 Germans sent from DL Scheglin 188 Polish priests to KL Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Approx. 150 of those held in DL Scheglin were murdered — some in the camp itself, the others in an execution site in Świerkowice forest. (more on: www.dsh.waw.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.06.23])
«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:
dl.dropboxusercontent.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.31], www.gusen.org.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], photos.szukajwarchiwach.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2025.09.18]
bibliographical:
„A martyrology of Polish clergy under German occupation, 1939‐1945”, Fr Szołdrski Vladislaus CSSR, Rome 1965
original images:
dl.dropboxusercontent.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.31], www.wtg-gniazdo.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], www.eszkola-wielkopolska.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.12.04]
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