Sacrificial Love in Auschwitz: The Life of St. Maximillian Kolbe
I composed this reflection on the life of Maximilian Kolbe for a prayer group at my Christian university. I had never heard of Kolbe until my Anglican priest celebrated his feast day at a weekday mass. I was entranced by his life. Some months later, we decided to reflect and pray about sacrificial love for one of our prayer group gatherings. As soon as I heard the theme, I knew I needed to share Kolbe's life story. Punctuated with Scripture, it is designed to be read aloud. On his feast day, the anniversary of his death, I felt it was worth sharing with you, my readers.
Maximillian Kolbe is a Christian saint who exemplifies sacrificial love. Kolbe was a Roman Catholic saint and his devotion to God was distinctly Marian in nature so some of the elements in his life may rub you the wrong way. For what it’s worth, in light of Kolbe’s character and legacy, I take his story at face value. At the very least, I think we owe him the benefit of the doubt.
“When Christ Calls a Man…”
Kolbe was born in Poland in 1894 to Roman Catholic parents. At a young age, he developed a deep love for Jesus and his blessed mother that would stick with him all his life. At the age of 12, he was praying to Mary and somewhat innocently asked her, “what is to become of me?”
Suddenly, Mary herself appeared before him. In Kolbe’s own words, “[t]hen she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity and the red that I should become a martyr.” What would you do? When given the choice between a life of purity, a hard road, or martyrdom, a hard end, what would you choose? Would you choose? I honestly don’t know what I would say, much less as a twelve year old. Kolbe asked for them both.
The next year, 1907, Kolbe joined the Franciscans. In 1911 he made his first vows and in 1914 he made his final vows. He would eagerly pursue religious education, earning two doctoral degrees, one in philosophy and one in theology. In 1918, he was ordained a priest.
Missionary and Friar
After his education, he returned to his home in Poland, starting a friary named “The City of the Immaculate.” By 1939, it was one of the largest in the world, housing 762 inhabitants.
Kolbe would seek to evangelize the world, founding an organization called The Army of the Immaculate to evangelize Poland (and the Freemasons, historic enemies of Catholicism, in particular). He also used the new medium of radio to reach his nation. In 1930, he traveled to Japan and in 1932 India, conducting missionary activities and founding two monasteries. By the age of 38, Kolbe was an ordained priest, had two doctorates, and had founded monasteries in three countries. It was as if he knew that his time for reaching the world was wearing thin and his martyr’s crown was fast approaching.
Kolbe had always been sickly and, in 1936, he was feeling so ill that he returned to Poland. If you know anything about history, you know how tragic this timing was. In 1933, Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany and the second world war was fast approaching. In 1939, the Nazis had invaded Poland and Kolbe was arrested for three months. Upon his release, Kolbe reorganized his monastery. Many of his brothers chose to flee the country. Kolbe and a select few remained in Poland, sheltering 3000 refugees and shielding 2000 Jews from the Nazis. "We must do everything in our power to help these unfortunate people who have been driven from their homes and deprived of even the most basic necessities,” Kolbe wrote, “Our mission is among them in the days that lie ahead.” Kolbe and his brothers sacrificed everything, their food, clothing, comfort, and safety, to care for the least of these.
I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.
Arrest and Auschwitz
All good things, though, must come to an end. Kolbe’s appointment with glory was fast approaching. On February 17, 1941, Kolbe was arrested and soon transferred to Auschwitz. Even in prison, Maximillian Kolbe was a force of love and peace. The guards tried their best to break his spirit but failed miserably. One day, he was forced to carry a huge board and, when he collapsed, he was brutally beaten and left for dead. His friends smuggled him to the camp hospital and, as he recovered, he shared the love of Jesus with his fellow patients.
If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
When food was brought to the camp, Kolbe would allow his hungry companions to go first, often leaving him without anything to eat. When he did have food, he would often share it with his companions. When asked why he did such things he would answer, “Every man has an aim in life. For most men it is to return home to their wives and families, or to their mothers. For my part, I give my life for the good of all men.”
A fellow priest who suffered alongside Kolbe in the camp later recounted, “Each time I saw Fr Kolbe in the courtyard I felt within myself an extraordinary effusion of his goodness. Although he wore the same ragged clothes as the rest of us, with the same tin can hanging from his belt, one forgot his wretched exterior and was conscious only of the charm of his inspired countenance and of his radiant holiness.”
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
To Die is Gain
One day, two prisoners escaped Auschwitz. The guards were furious. As punishment, they decided to starve ten men to death. At random, they selected them. One of them cried out, “Oh, my poor wife, my poor children. I shall never see them again.” Kolbe had nothing to prove. He had no one to impress. He had no obligations to this man. How many other fathers and husbands had died? What would you do? What would I do? When faced with such evil and tragedy, how can one love well?
Kolbe stepped forward, and in his calm, peaceful demeanor asked the guard, “I would like to take the place of this man.” The guard asked him why and he simply replied, “I am a Catholic priest from Poland.” The guard nodded and Kolbe took his place in the line of ten men. Is there any act more priestly than self-sacrifice? Kolbe brought the body and blood to his church family week after week. Now he would participate in that same death, giving his body and blood for another.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who…humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
In the death prison with nine other starving men, Kolbe would lead prayers and hymns, encouraging and sharing the love of Jesus with his brothers. Gradually, the prayers grew quieter and quieter. The janitor during those dark days remembered, “Since they had grown very weak, prayers were now only whispered. At every inspection, when almost all the others were now lying on the floor, Fr Kolbe was seen kneeling or standing in the centre as he looked cheerfully in the face of the SS men.” Two weeks later, Kolbe was the only man left alive. Frustrated at his refusal to die, the Nazis pulled Kolbe from his cell and brought him to a room for lethal injection. Kolbe breathed a prayer and offered his arm to his executioner. St. Maximillian Kolbe died on August 14, 1941. He would be cremated the next day, poetically appropriate, the feast day of the Assumption of Mary, when Roman Catholics commemorate the death of the blessed mother and her welcome into heaven. Even in death, Kolbe brought life and love.
The Legacy of a Martyr
A director of Polish cultural affairs commented, “In those conditions ... in the midst of a brutalization of thought and feeling and words such as had never before been known, man indeed became a ravening wolf in his relations with other men. And into this state of affairs came the heroic self-sacrifice of Fr Maximilian. The atmosphere grew lighter, as this thunderbolt provoked its profound and salutary shock.”
His last breath was as a martyr but the ordinary sacrifices of life prepared him for that moment. Kolbe lived a life of self-sacrificial love. He lived out the commandment we are all called to follow:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
Sources:
EWTN Global Catholic Television Network. “St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe.” Accessed August 14, 2020. https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/saints/maximilian-mary-kolbe-699.
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