St. Maximilian Kolbe

Maximillian Maria Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan friar, found his place in history when he volunteered to die in place of another man in the infamous Auschwitz prison. Born the second of five sons, two of his brothers succumbed to tuberculosis. A pivotal moment occurred in Kolbe's life when at age 12, he experienced a vision of Mary, offering him two "crowns", one of purity and one of martyrdom. Kolbe accepted both crowns, a decision profoundly influencing his life. Two years later, he and his older brother would enter the Franciscan seminary, a religious fraternity of the Catholic Church. Kolbe professed his final vows, earning his first "crown of purity", later traveling to Rome to earn doctorates in philosophy and theology. After his own bout with tuberculosis, his missionary zeal led him first to serve in China, where he failed to gather a following, and later to Japan, where he founded a monastery in Nagasaki, later be devastated by the 2nd atomic bomb of WWII. Upon his return to Poland, he established a radio station in the monastery, but was soon arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Auschwitz for providing shelter for 2,000 Jews. He was now about to earn his second "crown of martyrdom", when in Auschwitz, he volunteered to die in place of a fellow prisoner, Franciszek Gajowniczek, who when selected for execution was visibly shaken and cried out in despair for his wife and children. Explaining to Franciszek that, being a Catholic priest he had no family, a consequence of his first crown of purity, Franciszek accepted Kolbe's offer to die in his place. Kolbe then entered the "starvation chamber"and was later executed by lethal injection of carbonic acid. At the age of 12, Kolbe embraced his roles (crowns) to play in the Christian Story, and Franciszek Gajowniczek, who survived Auschwitz, would later dedicate his life to sharing Kolbe’s story. Maximillian Kolbe would later be canonized the saint of amateur radio operators, drug addicts and prisoners by Pope John Paul II in 1982.