Maximilian Kolbe

Who and What Maximilian Kolbe

Was?Maximilian Kolbe is named after my tutor group (9 Kolbe). Maximilian Kolbe was a Conventual Franciscan friar which is a job similar to being a monk but friars depend on charity and move around often and rely on different house to rest in.

Maximilian Kolbe was sent to Auschwitz after the Nazi’s invaded Poland and arrived in Niepokalanów, Warsaw where Kolbe built his monastery which then became a temporary hospital

after the Germans invaded Poland when Kolbe’s followers escaped. He was then arrested on the 19th of September 1941 but he was released on the 8th of December. He refused to sign Deutsche Volksliste which was an institution of classifying people of German Occupied territories. He received permission to publish his religious works. But many of his publications were anti-Nazi which led to him being arrested by the German Gestapo (secret police). He was imprisoned in

the Pawiak prison on the 17th February. After a short period he was transferred to Auschwitz. While he was there he was subject to harsh treatment and at one point he had to be taken to a prison hospital. By the end of July 3 prisoners escaped and the deputy camp commander (SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch) had to pick 10 men to starve to death. Franciszek Gajowniczek was one of them and cried out “My wife! My children!" so Maximilian Kolbe took his place. Maximilian Kolbe didn’t

starve to death so they injected him with carbolic acid and he didn’t struggle out of it. Franciszek survived and told people what Kolbe had done for him.

What Maximilian Kolbe did affected the Roman Catholic Church by showing how devoted Catholic people and to show that they would sacrifice their life so someone else who is less fortunate to survive.

This impacts our school because the students of St.

George are going to find Kolbe a role model of religious importance and self-sacrifice. He also shows us that if we sacrifice ourselves for other lives we will be remembered.

It’s important for Roman Catholics to have saints because the saints teaches them that what they need to avoid and how to control a certain situation.

Both protestant and Roman Catholics need saints to remind them of what not do and what to do.

Roman Catholics don’t need saints because people know what right and wrong is. And it’s not important to have them because history tells us what to do not a number of people who heroically saved lives.