Delicate image by Mike Flemming 2020.Copyright
When reading this please remember most of the prisoners were Jews some of whom had been raised as Catholics so Fr Kolbe said Mass every day while he and they were being starved to death.They were reduced to whispering the prayers as they slowly died one by one.Just think this, was Enlightment Europe the proud centre of ciivilised Europe
He did not die so the Nazis shot him
Tracing back, however, to the inhumanity of World War II, where a shattering sense of hopelessness pervaded the death camps as the Nazis took over Poland, this place of infamy became the Calvary of the modern times. Anger and hatred filled the heart of every prisoner until one stepped forward from the prisoners of Block 14, among whom ten had been singled out in retribution for one escapee. Not initially selected, this obscure man – Father Maximilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest – voluntarily took the place of one of the ten, the father of a family, who, along with the others prisoners, had been sentenced to death by starvation.
How my heart sings 