Roman Catholic
St Sigismund parish
05-507 Słomczyn
85 Wiślana Str.
Konstancin deanery
Warsaw archdiocese, Poland
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Martyrology of the clergy — Poland
XX century (1914 – 1989)
personal data
religious status
Servant of God
surname
CYREK
forename(s)
Joseph (pl. Józef)
function
religious cleric
creed
Latin (Roman Catholic) Churchmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]
congregation
Society of Jesus (Jesuits - SI)more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]
diocese / province
Lesser Poland Province SI (from 1926)
Polish Province SI (1918—26)
date and place
of death
02.09.1940
KL Auschwitzconcentration camp
today: Oświęcim, Oświęcim gm., Oświęcim pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.09]
details of death
After German and Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and start of the World War II arrested on 10.11.1939 in Kraków, together with 24 Jesuits from Kraków Jesuits' College (with Fr Casimir Dembowski, Fr Marian Morawski, Fr Stanislaus Podoleński, Bro John Zając, Bro Eugene Żeleźniak, students Stanislaus Sewiłło and Bronislaus Wielgosz, among others), by the Germans.
Jailed in Montelupich prison in Kraków.
Next on 03.02.1940 transported to Wiśnicz prison.
Finally on 20.06.1940 transported to KL Auschwitz concentration camp where he was tortured after refusal to resign from the priesthood and soon perished in camp's „hospital”.
cause of death
murder
perpetrators
Germans
date and place
of birth
13.09.1904
Bysinatoday: Myślenice gm., Myślenice pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
presbyter (holy orders)
ordination
24.08.1934 (Louvaintoday: Flemish Brabant prov., Flemish reg., Belgium
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.11.07])
positions held
c. 1935 – 1939
friar {Krakówtoday: Kraków city pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.07], monastery by the Holiest Heart of Jesus church, Jesuits SI}
1938 – 1935
editor {„The Host” bimonthly, Eucharistic Crusade}
1938 – 1939
head/manager {Secretariat, Eucharistic Crusade}
from c. 1935
employee {Krakówtoday: Kraków city pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.07], Apostolate of Prayer Printing House, Jesuits SI}
1931 – 1935
student {Louvaintoday: Flemish Brabant prov., Flemish reg., Belgium
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.11.07], philosophy and theology, Université Catholique de Louvain (pl. Catholic University of Leuven)}, also: priest to the Polish emigrees in Marchienne–au–Pont, Hainaut province, Belgium
1928 – 1931
student {Krakówtoday: Kraków city pov., Lesser Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.07], philosophy, Department of Theology, Jagiellonian University UJ}
06.12.1924
accession {Stara Wieśtoday: Brzozów gm., Brzozów pov., Subcarpathia voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.12.18], Assumption into Heaven of the Blessed Mary monastery, Jesuits SI}
writer and publicist author of biographies „Fr Peter Skarga” (Kraków 1936) and „Your model St Stanislaus Kostka” (Kraków 1937) and „Catechism for Polish Children” ( Kraków 1938); also: publicistof „General Review”, „Faith and Life”, „Catholic Missions”, „Young Forest” and „Messenger of the Heart of Jesus”
others related
in death
DEMBOWSKIClick to display biography Casimir Marian Anthony, MORAWSKIClick to display biography Marian Joseph Adalbert, PODOLEŃSKIClick to display biography Stanislaus Thaddeus, SEWIŁŁOClick to display biography Stanislaus, WIELGOSZClick to display biography Bronislaus, ZAJĄCClick to display biography John, ŻELEŹNIAKClick to display biography Eugene
murder sites
camp
(+ prisoner no)
KL Auschwitz: German KL Auschwitz concentration camp (Germ. Konzentrationslager) and death camp (Germ. Vernichtungslager) camp was set up by Germans around 27.01.1940 n. Oświęcim, on the German territory (initially in Germ. Provinz Schlesien — Silesia Province; and from 1941 Germ. Provinz Oberschlesien — Upper Silesia Province). Initially mainly Poles were interned. From 1942 it became the centre for holocaust of European Jews. Part of the KL Auschwitz concentration camps’ complex was death camp (Germ. Vernichtungslager) KL Auschwitz II Birkenau, located not far away from the main camp. There Germans murder possibly in excess of million people, mainly Jews, in gas chambers. Altogether In excess of 400 priests and religious went through the KL Auschwitz, approx. 40% of which were murdered (mainly Poles). (more on: www.meczennicy.pelplin.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.07.06])
Wiśnicz: Penal institution set up — by Joseph II, Austrian emperor, after 1st partition of Poland — in a former Discalded Carmelites’ convent in Nowy Wiśnicz n. Bochnia. During the World War II Germans initially used it as a concentration camp for Poles prior to opening up the KL Auschwitz concentration camp. Many Poles suspected by the Germans of collaboration with Polish Clandestine State, prior to being sent to concentration camps, especially KL Auschwitz, were held there. During the night of 26‑27.07.1944 resistance Home Army AK attacked the prison and freed 129 Polish „political” prisoners. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10])
Cracow (Montelupich): Cracow penal prison, during occupation run by the Germans — from 28.02.1941 by Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police, known as Gestapo. In 1940‑4 Germans jailed there approx. 50,000 prisoners, mainly Poles and Jews. Some of them were transported to KL Auschwitz concentration camp, some were executed. After cease in war effort the prison was used by UB — a Polish unit of Russian NKVD — as a prison for Polish independence resistance fighters, some of which were subsequently sent to prisons and slave labour camps in Russia. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.31])
Sonderaktion Krakau: German operation against Cracow intelligentsia, part of a broader „Intelligenzaktion” against Polish intelligentsia, carried out in 1939‑40. On 06.11.1939 Germans arrested 183/4 Cracow professors from prestigiuous universities, mainly Jagiellonian University. They were jailed in Montelupich prison in Cracow prior to being sent to KL Sachsenhausen concentration camp. 4 days later on 10.11.1939 Germans arrested 25 Jesuits from Cracow College. They were also jailed in Montelupich prison and then transported to German concentration camps where 7 of them perished. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.03.01])
Intelligenzaktion: (Eng. „Action Intelligentsia”) — extermination program of Polish elites, mainly intelligentsia, executed by the Germans right from the start of the occupation in 09.1939 till around 05.1940, mainly on the lands directly incorporated into Germany but also in the so‑called General Governorate where it was called AB‑aktion. During the first phase right after start of German occupation of Poland implemented as Germ. Unternehmen „Tannenberg” (Eng. „Tannenberg operation”) — plan based on proscription lists of Poles worked out by (Germ. Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen), regarded by Germans as specially dangerous to the German Reich. List contained names of c. 61,000 Poles. Altogether during this genocide Germans methodically murdered c. 50,000 teachers, priests, landowners, social and political activists and retired military. Further 50,000 were sent to concentration camps where most of them perished. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.10.04])
Ribbentrop-Molotov: Genocidal Russian–German alliance pact between Russian leader Joseph Stalin and German leader Adolf Hitler signed on 23.08.1939 in Moscow by respective foreign ministers, Mr. Vyacheslav Molotov for Russia and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany. The pact sanctioned and was the direct cause of joint Russian and German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the World War II in 09.1939. In a political sense, the pact was an attempt to restore the status quo ante before 1914, with one exception, namely the „commercial” exchange of the so–called „Kingdom of Poland”, which in 1914 was part of the Russian Empire, fore Eastern Galicia (today's western Ukraine), in 1914 belonging to the Austro–Hungarian Empire. Galicia, including Lviv, was to be taken over by the Russians, the „Kingdom of Poland” — under the name of the General Governorate — Germany. The resultant „war was one of the greatest calamities and dramas of humanity in history, for two atheistic and anti–Christian ideologies — national and international socialism — rejected God and His fifth Decalogue commandment: Thou shall not kill!” (Abp Stanislaus Gądecki, 01.09.2019). The decisions taken — backed up by the betrayal of the formal allies of Poland, France and Germany, which on 12.09.1939, at a joint conference in Abbeville, decided not to provide aid to attacked Poland and not to take military action against Germany (a clear breach of treaty obligations with Poland) — were on 28.09.1939 slightly altered and made more precise when a treaty on „German–Russian boundaries and friendship” was agreed by the same murderous signatories. One of its findings was establishment of spheres of influence in Central and Eastern Europe and in consequence IV partition of Poland. In one of its secret annexes agreed, that: „the Signatories will not tolerate on its respective territories any Polish propaganda that affects the territory of the other Side. On their respective territories they will suppress all such propaganda and inform each other of the measures taken to accomplish it”. The agreements resulted in a series of meeting between two genocidal organization representing both sides — German Gestapo and Russian NKVD when coordination of efforts to exterminate Polish intelligentsia and Polish leading classes (in Germany called Intelligenzaktion, in Russia took the form of Katyń massacres) where discussed. Resulted in deaths of hundreds of thousands of Polish intelligentsia, including thousands of priests presented here, and tens of millions of ordinary people,. The results of this Russian–German pact lasted till 1989 and are still in evidence even today. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30])
Pius XI's encyclicals: Facing the creation of two totalitarian systems in Europe, which seemed to compete with each other, though there were more similarities than contradictions between them, Pope Pius XI issued in 03.1937 (within 5 days) two encyclicals. In the „Mit brennender Sorge” (Eng. „With Burning Concern”) published on 14.03.1938, condemned the national socialism prevailing in Germany. The Pope wrote: „Whoever, following the old Germanic–pre–Christian beliefs, puts various impersonal fate in the place of a personal God, denies the wisdom of God and Providence [...], whoever exalts earthly values: race or nation, or state, or state system, representatives of state power or other fundamental values of human society, […] and makes them the highest standard of all values, including religious ones, and idolizes them, this one […] is far from true faith in God and from a worldview corresponding to such faith”. On 19.03.1937, published „Divini Redemptoris” (Eng. „Divine Redeemer”), in which criticized Russian communism, dialectical materialism and the class struggle theory. The Pope wrote: „Communism deprives man of freedom, and therefore the spiritual basis of all life norms. It deprives the human person of all his dignity and any moral support with which he could resist the onslaught of blind passions [...] This is the new gospel that Bolshevik and godless communism preaches as a message of salvation and redemption of humanity”... Pius XI demanded that the established human law be subjected to the natural law of God , recommended the implementation of the ideal of a Christian state and society, and called on Catholics to resist. Two years later, National Socialist Germany and Communist Russia came together and started World War II. (more on: www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28])
sources
personal:
pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.02.15], www.jezuici.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], www.hagiographycircle.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], www.sacerdospolonus.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.08.14], archive.todayClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19]
bibliograhical:, „Jesuits on Polish and Lithuanian territory knowledge encyclopedia, 1564‑1995”, Fr Louis Grzebień SI (editor), WAM Printing House, Cracow 1996,
original images:
www.sowiniec.com.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.03.14], college.holycross.eduClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.05.19], www.miejscapamiecinarodowej.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.05.09], www.harmeze.franciszkanie.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.03.21]
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