function

diocesan priest

creed

Latin (Roman Catholic) Church RCmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]

diocese / province

Przemyśl diocesemore on
www.przemyska.pl
[access: 2013.02.15]

date and place
of death

21.03.1941

KL Dachauconcentration camp
today: Dachau, Upper Bavaria reg., Bavaria state, Germany
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2016.05.30]

details of death

cause of death

extermination: exhaustion and starvation

perpetrators

Germans

date and place
of birth

22.12.1890

Posada Zarszyńskatoday: Zarszyn gm., Sanok pov., Subcarpathia voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.10.09]

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

30.06.1916 (Przemyśl cathedralmore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.11.14])

positions held

comments

murder sites
camp 
(+ prisoner no)

KL Dachau (prisoner no: 22198Click to display biography): KL Dachau in German Bavaria, set up in 1933, became the main German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL for Catholic priests and religious during World War II: On c. 09.11.1940, Reichsführer‑SS Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, Gestapo and German police, as a result of the Vatican's intervention, decided to transfer all clergymen detained in various concentration camps to KL Dachau camp. The first major transports took place on 08.12.1940. In KL Dachau Germans held approx. 3,000 priests, including 1,800 Poles. The priests were forced to slave labor in the Germ. „Die Plantage” — the largest herb garden in Europe, managed by the genocidal SS, consisting of many greenhouses, laboratory buildings and arable land, where experiments with new natural medicines were conducted — for many hours, without breaks, without protective clothing, no food. They slaved in construction, e.g. of camp's crematorium. In the barracks ruled hunger, freezing cold in the winter and suffocating heat during the summer, especially acute in 1941‑1942. Prisoners suffered from bouts of illnesses, including tuberculosis. Many were victims of murderous „medical experiments” — in 11.1942 c. 20 were given phlegmon injections; in 07.1942 to 05.1944 c. 120 were used by for malaria experiments. More than 750 Polish clerics where murdered by the Germans, some brought to Schloss Hartheim euthanasia centre and murdered in gas chambers. At its peak KL Dachau concentration camps’ system had nearly 100 slave labour sub‑camps located throughout southern Germany and Austria. There were c. 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands perished without a trace. C. 10,000 of the 30,000 inmates were found sick at the time of liberation, on 29.04.1945, by the USA troops… (more on: www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.deClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10], en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.05.30])

KL Auschwitz (prisoner no: 90Click to display biography): German Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL and Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. extermination camp) VL Auschwitz 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 Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. extermination camp) VL 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: en.auschwitz.org.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], www.meczennicy.pelplin.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.07.06])

Tarnów: The prison commissioned on 29.11.1926, considered at that time to be the most modern of its kind in Europe. During World War II and the German occupation, it functioned under the name of Germ. Deutsche Strafanstalt Tarnów (Eng. Penal Institution Tarnów) and was initially used as a transit camp for Polish prisoners of war, and then as a prison of the German political police Gestapo. In total, the Germans held about 25,000 Poles there. Many of them were shot by the Germans in the surrounding villages, others were transported to concentration camps. Among others, on 14.06.1940, a transport of 728 prisoners, who became the first prisoners of the newly established German concentration camp KL Auschwitz, was sent from the Tarnów prison. Later, about 50 such transports were sent to KL Auschwitz, and others to KL Sachsenhausen, KL Gross Rosen, KL Ravensbruck, KL Płaszów, and the children's camp in Łódź. After the end of the military operations of World War II and the beginning of the Russian occupation, political prisoners, opponents of the Commie‑Nazi regime of the Russian republic known as prl, were also held there. (more on: www.sw.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.17])

Rzeszów: During German occupation penal prison run by the Germans set up in Rzeszów Castle. At any one time more than 2,500 prisoners were held there (for instance from 01.04.1943 till 01.03.1944), mainly Poles. In the Castle basements and on prison yard executions were carried out of those sentenced by the German Sondergericht (Eng. special court) kangaroo court — other prisoners of the Castle were executed by the Germans at other sites in Rzeszów as well. After German withdrawal on 02.08.1944 and capture of Rzeszów by the Russians the prison was taken over initially by the Russian genocidal NKVD and then by Polish UB, a unit of murderous Russian NKVD. Thousands, of prisoners — Polish political activists and partisans, members of various clandestine organizations (among others from Home Army AK, part of Polish Clandestine State, and Freedom and Independence WiN) — were then held captive there. Local AK leader, Col. Lukas Ciepliński, future chairman of 4th Command of WiN, murdered by Commie‑Nazis in 1951, reported in 1944 that „during interrogations even women are brutally beaten. The processes […] are led by NKVD” and „the prisoners’ situation […] is dreadful. They simply perish from hunger. The food in German times compared to today was simply a luxury”. Executions of those held — Polish independence activists, but also German war criminals and Ukrainian nationalist — were also, as done by the Germans, carried out then in the Castle, in Castle’s basements and on the gallows in the prison yard. (more on: www.sw.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.12.04])

«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])

General Governorate: A separate administrative territorial region set up by the Germans in 1939 after defeat of Poland, which included German‑occupied part of Polish territory that was not directly incorporate into German state. Created as the result of the Ribbentrop‑Molotov Pact, in a political sense, was to recreate the German idea of 1915 (after the defeat of the Russians in the Battle of Gorlice in 05.1915 during World War I) of establishing a Polish enclave within Germany (also called the General Governorate at that time). It was run by the Germans till 1945 and final Russian offensive, and was a part of so‑called Big Germany — Grossdeutschland. Till 31.07.1940 formally known as Germ. Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete (Eng. General Governorate for occupied Polish territories) — later as simply Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate). From 07.1941 expanded to include district Galicia. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.12.04])

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 Stanislav 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], www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28])

sources

personal:
pl.auschwitz.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], www.podkarpacki.civitaschristiana.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.17], www.ipgs.usClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23]
bibliographical:
„Register of Latin rite Lviv metropolis clergy’s losses in 1939‑45”, Józef Krętosz, Maria Pawłowiczowa, editors, Opole, 2005
„Biographical lexicon of Lviv Roman Catholic Metropoly clergy victims of the II World War 1939‑1945”, Mary Pawłowiczowa (ed.), Fr Joseph Krętosz (ed.), Holy Cross Publishing, Opole, 2007
„Urns kept at the Am Perlacher Forst cemetery — analysis”, Mr Gregory Wróbel, curator of the Museum of Independence Traditions in Łódź, private correspondence, 25.05.2020
„Schematismus Venerabilis Cleri Dioecesis PremisliensisClick to display biography”, Przemyśl diocesa Curia, from 1866 to 1938
original images:
m.facebook.comClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.18], www.miejscapamiecinarodowej.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.08.14]