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Seventieth Anniversary of the Death of Father Maksymilian Kolbe
More than two thousand people, among them former inmates of Auschwitz, Polish pilgrims from all over the country, and the staff of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum attended a Mass, concelebrated by cardinals, bishops, priests and monks at the former German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz.
Liturgy was celebrated near the cell in Block 11, where Father Maximilian Kolbe died and the ceremony was the culmination of the seventieth anniversary of the death of the Franciscan, murdered in Auschwitz in August 1941.
Before Mass, pilgrims reached the camp of the Franciscan Center in Harmęże and the St. Maximilian Kolbe Church in Auschwitz. The faithful and the clergy walked to Block 11, where at the Death Wall - the place where the Nazis executed thousands of prisoners – they placed bunches of flowers and lighted candles.
The field altar featured the wooden rosary of St. Maximilian, donated by him to a fellow prisoner, and the rose of Benedict XVI, which the Pope bestowed on the Memorial during his pilgrimage in 2006. Unlike other papal roses, which are usually gold, this is the only one in the world that is black.
Mass was presided over by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz. In his homily, he said: "In the intentions of its creators, the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was to become a tool to create a world without God, a closed world of supermen who despised other man because of differences of race, nationality, culture and language. Here on this earth, the sons and daughters of the Jewish people, taking their origin from Abraham, were annihilated. Here Poles, Gypsies, Russians, Germans, and innocent people from all over Europe were murdered."
Dziwisz referred to the memorable words of John Paul II during his visit to the Memorial in 1979: "I could not fail to come here as Pope [...] I come to join you , no matter what your faith is, in once again looking into human affairs in the eye." The cardinal stressed the importance of mutual respect for human dignity. "May the names of our love and our attitude be the sensitivity of the heart, solidarity, dialogue and respect for loved ones, but also for those who think differently," urged Dziwisz.
Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg in Germany said: "As Germans we inflicted much injustice and suffering on many people in this place. It is a miracle that - as Germans - we can stay here, to pray and thank God for his love."
President of Poland Bronislaw Komorowski sent a letter to the participants. "The pessimism and bitterness, which swell up in every person who visits the former German death camps, can now - thanks to father Kolbe's heroic deed – be contrasted with another, beautiful face of humanity, faith in the victory of goodness and hope for a better future for our world," wrote the president.
The celebrations ended with an appeal for peace in the world from "the former concentration camp Auschwitz, site of the death of millions of innocent people and a symbol of totalitarianisms, which in the first half of the twentieth century dominated Europe." "World peace will reign when love makes itself at home in our hearts and we find our own humanity," the authors of the appeal urged.
Rajmund Kolbe was born on October 8, 1894 in Zduńska Wola. In 1910 he joined the Franciscan Order in Lwów, where he received the name Maximilian. In 1912 he began his studies in Rome in philosophy and theology, obtaining doctorates in those disciplines, and was ordained a priest. He returned to Poland in 1919. In 1927 he founded a monastery in Niepokalanów near Warsaw and a publishing house. He was also a missionary in Japan.
On May 28, 1941, he was imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Two months later he offered up his life in exchange for that of a stranger, Franciszek Gajowniczek, sentenced to death by starvation in reprisal for the escape of a prisoner. He died on August 14, 1941, killed by an injection of phenol in the cellars of the so-called Death Block.
He was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1971, and canonized by the Blessed John Paul II on October 10, 1982. In 1999 he was proclaimed by the pope as patron of blood donors. He is also patron of the Diocese of Bielsko-Zywiec.
