Vigils Reading – St Maximilian

A TESTIMONY FROM

THE BEATIFICATION PROCESS

OF ST MAXIMILIAN KOLBE1

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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 the kapo 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

with 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 in the dark camp night.