A prisoner had escaped!

    The implication stabbed each heart with dread as “Butcher” Karl Fritsch, the Nazi Commandant at Auschwitz, ordered all remaining inmates outside the bunker.

    Franciszek Gajowniczek (Gah-yav-NEE-chek), a former sergeant in the Polish army, took his place in the formation, desperately hoping to be overlooked in the impending selection process. Lagerfuhrer Fritsch pointed with his hand, randomly choosing ten men to pay the price for the escapee’s disobedience: death by starvation in Bunker 11. Among them was the terrified Gajowniczek.

    As SS police escorted him to the front of the block, he cried out in despair, “I am sorry that I am leaving my wife and children!” Standing just four or five men from him was a priest named Maximilian Kolbe. He heard Franciszek’s cry, and unafraid, approached the Nazi authority. To Fritsch’s crude question, “What do you want, Polish pig?” the priest replied, “I want to go in place of one of those selected. He has a family. I am alone—I am a Catholic priest.”

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

    No one expected the request to be granted—in fact, most assumed the priest would simply be added to the doomed group—but Fritsch for some reason allowed the exchange. Franciszek returned to the ranks while Kolbe and the other nine were marched toward the underground cement cell, stripped, and thrown down the steps to die.

    Deprivation of food and water caused a torturous death, as evidenced by the shrieks of pain and misery emanating from the starvation bunkers. Yet, when Father Kolbe and the other condemned men were encamped there, the situation was markedly different.

“We urge you, brethren, . . . encourage the fainthearted, help the weak” (1 Thessalonians 5:14).

    Bruno Borgowiec, a prisoner who would later remove Maximilian’s body from the bunker, gave this report: “In one bunker was Father Kolbe. The cell, with the cold and the cement floor, had one ceiling-level window and no furniture. Just a pail for natural needs. The stench was overwhelming. Father never complained. He prayed aloud, so that his fellow prisoners could hear him in order to join him. He had the special gift of comforting everybody. When his fellow prisoners, writhing in agony, were begging for a drop of water, and in despair were screaming and cursing, Father Kolbe would calm them down, inspiring them to perseverance.

    “From the cell where these unfortunates were buried alive, you could hear the sound of prayers recited out loud, and the condemned men from other cells would join in . . . Sometimes they would be so absorbed in prayer that they did not even realize the guards had come for the daily inspection. Only when the SS began shouting at them would they stop praying.” *

“For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:5).

    Twelve days after the prisoners had entered the starvation bunker, authorities wanted the cell evacuated to make room for the next condemned contingent. Surprisingly, they discovered that four men remained alive, Father Kolbe being the only one still conscious. Such stamina would have been amazing for a healthy man, but it was even more miraculous, considering that Maximilian had been sickly for much of his life. Author Boniface Hanley commented, “One cannot help but think of Christ emerging from his tomb to bring new life to all.” *

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

    So on August 14, 1941—six months after he was arrested for aiding Jews and the Polish underground—the 47-year-old priest was killed by lethal injection. Indeed, the Christlikeness of this man was evident in more than the obvious comparison—the voluntary, substitutionary death that meant life for someone else. It was not only how Kolbe died but also how he lived—even urging other inmates to forgive their oppressors—that evokes images of the Savior. (Matthew 5:44)

    In Gajowniczek’s own words,

“Even the very limited piece of bread he was assigned, he broke and gave it to others . . . companions in the camp. Many of them, they wanted to refuse that, but he pleaded, ‘Take this. You are young. You need more than I do.’ I remember that . . . he met the prisoner . . . who was starving and beaten . . . Maximilian Kolbe said to him, ‘Come to me and I will encourage you. I will refresh you. I will give you the word of encouragement.’ The prisoner thought when he comes to visit Maximilian, that he will give him bread. Maximilian not only gave him bread, but he gave him communion [and] the Word of God.” (speech in Houston, Texas, December, 1994)

 

 

“Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent” (Luke 23:47)

    Father Kolbe’s remarkable example was not lost on those who observed—not even on the SS guards. Prisoner Borgowiec reported, “The guards knew he had volunteered his life in place of the prisoner who had a family. Once I heard one of them say: ‘This priest is a real man. I never saw one like him here before.’” *

“For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son...” (Romans 8:29).

    Scripture is clear that those who believe in the Son are to become increasingly like Him; in fact, the word “Christian” means “little Christ.” But just as Maximilian Kolbe is a striking example of Christlikeness, Gajowniczek provides a good illustration of the way a saved person should react to Jesus’ atoning sacrifice.

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place” (2 Corinthians 2:14).

    Motivated by profound gratitude, Franciszek devoted his remaining 53 years to telling Maximilian’s story. The former soldier wanted people near and far to know about the man who willingly offered his own life so that another could live. In December, 1994—a mere four months before his death at age 93—Gajowniczek made his tenth and final visit to the United States, to participate in a ceremony honoring Father Kolbe. The translator revealed, “[Franciszek] told me that as long as he . . . has breath in his lungs, he would consider it his duty to tell people about the heroic act of love by Maximilian Kolbe.” (Jewish Virtual Library).

    Even after five decades, Franciszek still bore the tattooed prisoner number 5659 on his left arm—evidence of that hopeless, past life of slavery in the concentration camp. In a similar way, believers are new creations: while they are freed from bondage to sin, they nevertheless retain an old sin nature, the reminder of their former way of life. (2 Corinthians 5:17; Romans 13:14) Out of deep gratitude for Christ paying our death penalty (Romans 6:23) and offering eternal life in exchange, we, too, should be telling the world the Good News:

“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

—Sandy Feit

*(Hanley, No Greater Love, 1982)