80th Anniversary of Death of 4 Salesians in Auschwitz

80th Anniversary of Death 
of 4 Salesians in Auschwitz

(ANS – Rome – June 24, 2021) – June 27 will mark the 80th anniversary of the martyrdom of four of the twelve Salesians belonging to the Krakow Salesian Province who were arrested on the night of May 23, 1941 by the Gestapo. They are Fr. Jan Swierc, 64, pastor of St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in Krakow; Fr. Ignacy Dobiasz, 61, parochial vicar; Fr. Franciszek Harazim, 56, professor of theology; Fr. Kazimierz Wojciechowski, 37, catechist.

Top: Frs. Swierc & Harazim;

Bottom: Frs. Wojciechowski & Dobiasz 

After a summary interrogation, although completely uninvolved with any form of political propaganda, they were accused of participating in clandestine organizations and, even more serious, of promoting the national culture – to the detriment of Nazi Germany - among young people (such as their parishioner Karol Wojtyla), exploiting the influence deriving from their priesthood. That was enough to deserve being tortured and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Deprived even of their names, they were forced to wear 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 suffocated by the nauseating fumes of the burnt corpses that rose from the crematorium chimney, beaten and exhausted by the inhuman work, in a short time they fell by the hands of the SS guards.

Fr. Jan Swierc and Fr. Ignacy Dobiasz were the victims of that morning of June 27, 1941. In the afternoon, Fr. Franciszek Harazim and Fr. Kazimierz Wojciechowski suffered martyrdom, side by side.

“This sacrifice was a seed of life, a seed of victory…. Those pastors ... for the Christian life of every parishioner and especially for 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 blood of martyrdom,” the then-archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, said of them in a homily on January 30, 1972.

The Positio super martyrio is currently being drafted for these and five other martyrs (Frs. Ignacy Antonowicz, Karol Golda, Ludwik Mroczek, Wlodzimierz Szembek, and Franciszek Miska).