76 years ago on July 29, 1941 in Auschwitz, Father Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to give his life for the fellow prisoner Franciszek Gajowniczek.
When a camp prisoner appeared to have escaped, deputy commandant Karl Fritzsch ordered that ten other prisoners die by starvation in reprisal. Gajowniczek (prisoner number 5659) was one of those selected. When the Franciscan priest, Kolbe, heard Gajowniczek cry out in agony over the fate of his family, he offered himself instead (for which he was later canonized). Kolbe's exact words have been forgotten, but one eye-witness account records his words as: "I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children."[4] The switch was permitted, and the punishment meted out. After all his cellmates died, Kolbe (prisoner number 16670) was put to death with an injection of carbolic acid.
Photo of grave of Franciszek Gajowniczek at the cemetery in Niepokalanów (Poland).
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