St. Maximilian Kolbe

A MIGHTY EXPLOSION OF LIGHT

From a testimony at the beatification of St Maximilian Kolbe 2

◊◊◊

Fr Kolbe and I worked together in May or June 1941. We were bringing sand up from the Sola River. This was some of Auschwitz’s heaviest work, so our squad had a very hard time indeed. The work itself was very painful; we were lightly and very insufficiently dressed, and yet we had to wade into the cold water to dig the sand. In addition the guards beat us cruelly or sometimes killed prisoners outright. From the first time I saw Father Maximilian I was struck by his dignity and calm, so different from others. In spite of the terrible conditions and bad treatment, he never complained nor did he curse. Instead he tried to comfort the other prisoners and lift our spirits. During the three weeks we worked together, I sometimes saw beat Father Kolbe with a big stick. Each time, Father Kolbe took it without a murmur.

The news of his death was an enormous shock to the whole camp. We became aware someone among us in this spiritual dark night of the soul was raising the standard of love on high. Someone unknown, like everyone else, tortured and bereft of name and social standing, went to a horrible death for the sake of someone not even related to him. Therefore it is not true, we cried, that humanity is cast down and trampled in the mud, overcome by oppressors, and overwhelmed by hopelessness. Thousands of prisoners were convinced the true world continued to exist and that our torturers would not be able to destroy it. More than one individual began to look within himself for this real world, found it, and shared it with his camp companion, strengthening both in this encounter with5 evil. To say that Father Kolbe died for one of us or for that person’s family is too great a simplification. His death was the salvation of thousands. And on this, I would say, rests the greatness of that death. That’s how we felt about it. And as long as we live, we who were at Auschwitz will bow our heads in memory of it as at that time we bowed our head before the bunker of death by starvation. That was a shock full of optimism, regenerating and giving strength; we were stunned by his act, which became for us a mighty explosion of light….

2 Beatificationis et Canonizationis Servi Dei Maximiliani M Kolbe, Sacerdotis Professi Ordinis Fratrum Minor Conventualium, Cracow, 1971, in Patricia Treece, ” A Man For Others”, San Francisco, 1982, pp 139, 178- 179.