83 years since the martyrdom of 4 Salesians in Auschwitz, Nazi extermination camp

This June 27 marks the 83rd anniversary of the martyrdom of four Salesian priests murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp (Poland), where more than a million people died due to the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany.

Se trata del P. Jan Świerc, de 64 años; P. Ignacy Dobiasz, de 61; P. Franciszek Harazim, de 56; y el P. Kazimierz Wojciechowski, de 37.

These priests were four of the twelve Salesians from the San Jacinto province of Krakow arrested on the night of May 23, 1941 by officials of the Gestapo, the official secret police of Nazi Germany.

The Salesian news agency ANS remember that the four priests, after “a summary interrogation, although completely unaware of any form of political propaganda, were accused of participating in clandestine organizations and, more seriously, of promoting national culture – to the detriment of Nazi Germany – among young people, exploiting the influence derived from their priesthood.”

“That was enough to deserve torture and the Auschwitz concentration camp,” adds the Salesian agency.

It is also narrated that the four were forced “to carry the bloody rags of those who, before them, had not survived the terrible penal company to which those accused of serious crimes were destined.”

“Almost asphyxiated by the nauseating vapors of the burned corpses that rose from the chimney of the crematorium, beaten and exhausted by the inhuman work, in a short time they fell into the hands of the SS (Schutzstaffe),” explains the Salesian agency.

On the morning of June 27, 1941, Father Jan Świerc and Father Ignacy Dobiasz were murdered, while in the afternoon it was the turn of Father Franciszek Harazim and Father Kazimierz Wojciechowski, side by side.

In the homily of January 30, 1972, the then Archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (the future Pope John Paul II), said that “this sacrifice was the seed of life, the seed of victory.”

“Those pastors (…) for the Christian life of each parishioner and especially of the young (…) parishioners paid not only with a good word, not only with the good example of their generous life, but also with the sacrifice and the blood of martyrdom,” he added.

Currently the Position on martyrdom for the cause of beatification of the four priests and five other martyrs: Fr. Ignacy Antonowicz, Fr. Karol Golda, Fr. Ludwik Mroczek, Fr. Wlodzimierz Szembek and Fr. Franciszek Miska.