When a prisoner escaped late in July of that year 1941, ten men from his barracks were picked to suffer death by starvation as both punishment and deterrent. Fr. Maximilian offered to take the place of one of the men; Franciszek Gajowniczek had let out a cry of pain for his family and this holy priest volunteered to take his place.
Maximilian has a statue at Westminster Abbey.
St. Maximilian Kolbe is among twenty modern martyrs from across the globe who have been honored with a statue on the façade of Westminster Abbey. This priest who had no greater love than to lay down his life can be seen above the west door of the abbey, along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr. and seventeen others.
The prisoner whom St. Maximilian saved attended his canonization.
There was one extraordinary man in attendance at St. Maximilian’s canonization: Franciszek Gajowniczek. Though spared the torture of the starvation bunker, Gajowniczek had still suffered greatly. He was in Auschwitz for over five years and his sons did not live to see the day of his release. Those prisoners who had grown so fond of Fr. Kolbe were particularly cruel to Gajowniczek, as they blamed him for the loss of their beloved friend and priest. But he received consolation in 1982, in St. Peter’s Square, when the man who offered his life for Franciszek’s was declared a saint.
How my heart sings 