The heroic trend, Part One

Part One

Concentration camps are usually associated with indescribable suffering and death on a mass scale. Unlike the situation in conditions of war, in a concentration camp there was no chance of open warfare against the enemy in accordance with the usual rules of war. In a concentration camp the torturers were the only ones who had rights. Prisoners had but one right—to die.

Perhaps that is why in the concentration camps any attempt to resist or to fight psychologically or physically stood out most spectacularly. Such attitudes came as a surprise not only to prisoners, but also to the camp’s personnel. If it is taken for granted that prisoners were required to be absolutely obedient and submissive—and that was their most likely attitude—then any attempt to stray and fail to keep to the strict discipline of the camp, which was the most unlikely attitude for a prisoner to take, would trigger aggression from the functionaries.

The dreadful existential conditions in the concentration camps gave rise to the trampling of human dignity, but they also prompted prisoners to engage in reactions and behaviors that were heroic and elevated human dignity to the sublime.

Acts of heroism and heroic attitudes in concentration camps have not received as much research and study as they deserve, although the subject has cropped up on many occasions in scholarship, as well as in memoirs and works of fiction. However, the concept of “heroism” in the traditional sense of the word seems somewhat out of place with respect to what went on in the concentration camps. A knowledge and appreciation of the realities in them shows the inadequacy of this concept, and instead we get a nagging, subconscious feeling that what we are really talking about is a negative attitude, closer to heroics than to real heroism. The line separating the two is not sharp, just as the assessment of the way people behaved in the concentration camps may be ambivalent, not sharp.

One of the biggest paradoxes of the concentration camp system was that the same behaviour, the same reaction coming from a prisoner, could equally well be rated an act of cowardice or of heroism. For instance, a prisoner could attempt to escape as a cowardly way out of the perils and ordeals of life in the camp, and being too weak to defy them; or his attempt to escape could be seen as the supreme expression of heroism, because of the negligible chances of success and the formidable reprisals, usually his own death and often the deaths of his “decimated” fellow‑prisoners. It was rare for anything a prisoner did to be judged in one way and only one way, there were no unanimous judgments, they depended on point of view, circumstances, and real, not just presumable motives.

Another aspect that makes this a difficult area of inquiry is that the time that has elapsed is too short to facilitate judgment. The human life‑span, even of the longest life, is too short a measure of time for the assessment of socio‑cultural and philosophical phenomena.

Yet another problem is the terminological and semantic vagueness and heterogeneity of the concepts. Kępiński and Masłowski (1972) pointed this out in their work on heroism as presented in postwar publications, especially in fiction. Their point of departure was the famous Horatian maxim, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (It is pleasant and honorable to die for one’s country). Dying for one’s country used to be associated with a romantic notion of heroism, and that was the attitude with which many young people set off for war. Dying for his or her country used to be regarded as the supreme test of an individual’s personal worth. This type of patriotic upbringing prompted young soldiers and officers to accomplish acts of heroism and adopt heroic attitudes on front lines and in resistance movements alike. But the fate of those who ended up in a concentration camp was tragic: they had no opportunity at all of proving their ideals in action, as practically anything they could have done would have meant a death sentence.

The heroic attitude, the need for heroism is an innately human feature, and such tendencies are inherent in every human individual, though in varying proportions. They are manifested most forcefully in adolescence and youth, for that is the period when the individual’s need to find the ideal that is right for him, his own model of heroism, is at its strongest. Often this need finds its expression in the choice of a dangerous or risky way of life, or sometimes in the individuals’ defiance of the reality they have encountered, or in an attitude of altruism and dedication to the service of others or to his or her chosen ideal. Times of socio‑political upheaval, revolution, and war are auspicious for the manifestation of heroic attitudes and deeds. So are situations of stress, especially intense stress, extreme life- or health-threatening, situations, which help to reveal an individual’s true image. The problem of the change of an individual’s hierarchy of values in the face of death has always attended us, and we ask how close to death must the individual get for such a change to be triggered in him.

Kępiński wrote that the death camps manifested the truth about mankind, which we still cannot digest. In these camps the “hell” and the “heaven” of human experience was revealed. Not only has a vestige of this experience been preserved in the survivors, but it has also been shown in the second generation. “Every human being, even the humblest human, leaves his or her own mark,” Kępiński concludes. Sometimes it is only when observed over a certain lapse of time that that mark acquires the attributes of heroism.

Many of the behaviors and acts done in the camp were absolutely spontaneous, manifested only in the face of imminent death, and at the time no one would have considered them heroic. Often the choice of a particular behaviour would be made below the threshold of consciousness, there was no time to assess its intellectual value, and usually making the wrong choice would be tantamount to a sentence of death.

The camp had its own criteria of heroism and cowardice. Concentration camp heroism had unique, characteristic features of its own. And although when we speak of heroism in the concentration camp or under wartime occupation we generally think of individuals like Father Kolbe, Janusz Korczak, or Edith Stein, there were, of course, many more such deeds. They were not isolated cases, not the only ones to transcend the specifics of the situation in which they found themselves, not the only ones who refused to fit into the bounds of the prison, concentration camp, wartime, or insurrectionary “here and now.” We must not forget about the martyrs who were tortured to death by their interrogators and died, often anonymously, without giving anybody away.

The Second World War, and especially its hitherto unprecedented methods of mass extermination, completely transformed the criteria of heroism. Hence in our attempt to fathom the psychological, social, and philosophical mysteries of that period, and to discover vestiges of the transcendental in the Gehenna of the concentration camps, we should take a closer look at the heroic trend in the life of concentration camp prisoners.

In the pandemonium of the concentration camp, evil and violence did not always win. The backdrop of iniquity served as a contrast setting off the brilliance of those attitudes that elevated man morally, in defiance of the oppressors’ ideology or quasi‑ideology. The ability and power to bring such an attitude to light was in itself marked with the traits of heroism. Here is what Stanisław Pigoń, one of the Polish professors sent to Sachsenhausen, had to say:

“Who of us few eye-witnesses will ever forget the sight of Father Konstanty Michalski being tortured only because he was ein Pfaffe? His magnificent fortitude and dignity triumphing over abuse and humiliation will stay in our memories forever. Who can forget Stanisław Estreicher’s manly reticence and sturdy resilience to the excruciating suffering that filled the last days of his life? We looked on with embarrassment and respect at the self-control, serenity, and well-nigh spiritual cheerfulness of Kazimierz Kostanecki, as despite the pain he suffered from an erysipelas (St. Anthony’s fire) infection, and without a word of complaint he stood up on his red, swollen legs alongside us at roll call, every day almost to the day he died. . . . They were all exemplary and rousing for their attitude and spiritual defiance in the face of humiliation and ordeal. . . .

“Such examples of steadfastness and magnanimity, testified to by death, brilliant and inspiring, had the power to sustain and save our faith in humanity, submitted to such a cruel test. They are a gain beyond price, brought out of the depths of frenzied evil. They constituted our catharsis, and oblige us to keep the memory of those times of oppression and humiliation with rightful pride.” (Pigoń, 1966)

The innovative method of mass killing practiced in the concentration camps seems to have been matched by the novel dimension of the heroic reactions which defied it. The Polish novelist Paweł Jasienica made the following observation (1985):

“The systematic, painstakingly planned extermination of those who spoke a language that was not the invader’s speech and adhered to a worldview other than his—was something that was generically new.”

The question of heroic attitudes and deeds in concentration camps is associated with the aspect of moral experience and assessment. The conditions of life in the camp were geared to the degradation of the prisoners’ moral status and dignity. As Alicja Glińska points out quite rightly,

“In concentration camps the need to take action for the good of others was not at all widespread; prisoners’ main effort was to survive, preserve their own existence, save their own life, and satisfy their personal needs. Their spiritual life was impoverished, the interests they had on arrival in the camp died out, and what followed was not the development and enrichment of their personality, but its curtailment and debasement down to the primitive state. Such conditions did not allow prisoners to put others and the well‑being or happiness of others first, at the top of their hierarchy of values,as an aim in itself, because a prisoner’s first aim was his own good, which was often at odds with the interests of others. . . . The quest for truth or beauty was not pursued, because it could not be achieved in a concentration camp. The moral standards and assessments that took shape in the concentration camps, were acknowledged by prisoners and determined their behaviour, were subject to the basic need to survive biologically.” (Glińska, 1969)

If that was the general, run‑of‑the#8209;mill situation, anything that departed from the stereotype and focused on the needs of others, even at the cost of a prisoner’s own life, must have aroused astonishment and respect.

For the majority of prisoners the nightmare of the concentration camp was a shock exceeding all their previous experiences of trauma. The situation in the camp gave rise to an anxiety Kępiński put in the category of disintegrative anxiety. What was most at risk in the camp was the first principle of biology, the living organism’s right to preserve its own life. According to Kępiński, to survive a concentration camp, an inmate had to break free to a certain extent from this overpowering principle of survival at any cost.

“Those who submitted completely to this principle lost their humanity, and very often their chances of survival as well. One of the human properties a prisoner needed to survive a concentration camp was the ability to internally defy all that was going on in the camp, to build up one’s own world, in the dreams of the future or in the memories of the past, or in a more down‑to‑earth way, in a friendship, by helping a fellow‑inmate, by trying to organize life in a way that differed from life in the camp etc. This was the only way a prisoner could break free from the automatic nature of concentration camp life. . . . In this way the principle of survival was as it were acting in opposition to itself. A person who could not stand up to it and challenge it, who could not withstand hunger, fend off the feeling of panic and anxiety, put up with the pain, think about something else other than just about what was going on around and hurting most acutely, at least for a moment—such a person was condemned to death.

“The condition for survival was to free oneself, at least in part, from the nightmare of the concentration camp and to defy its four basic properties: its gruesomeness, its inertia, its biological threat, and its automatic nature.” (Kępiński, 1966)

One of the survivors made an observation which is helpful in the attempt to find an explanation for the acts of heroism that occurred in the concentration camp and understand how they were possible. She compared the range of concentration camp experiences to “hell” and “heaven” (see Kępiński and Kłodziński, 1973). To survive the camp prisoners either had to identify with the system of power and its violence, or on the contrary—try to keep up their dignity at all costs and use it as a support helping them to persevere and put up with all the adversities. So sometimes it happened that, as if in defiance of all the atrocities, concentration camp inmates adopted the noblest attitudes: dedication to others, solidarity, taking risks to help fellow‑prisoners etc. Presumably this was the most common mechanism leading to heroic attitudes.

Prisoners discovered that “the altruistic attitude strengthened not only the recipient, but also the dispenser of the assistance” (Kępiński and Kłodziński, 1973).

There was another condition which had to be met for the heroic attitude to be made manifest. Kępiński called it the need for inner freedom.

“If there was so much self‑sacrifice, courage, devotion and love of one’s neighbour in the anus mundi, in the concentration camps; if all these phenomena—seemingly impossible in those conditions—actually occurred, then it must have been thanks to that inner freedom.

“... One might think that heroism was absolutely out of the question in conditions of utter enthrallment, humiliation, and distress. To rise up to such an occasion a person must have at least a bit of room for free movement and some strength of their own. But it could be done even in those conditions: even in the hell that was the concentration camp the grandeur of humanity could still be displayed.” (Kępiński, 1965).

The fact of Auschwitz, as Tischner (1982) wrote, gave rise to a variety of attitudes and philosophies of helplessness, to a philosophy oriented on despair; and to heroism and a philosophy which demonstrates that heroism may flourish even in the midst of bestiality.

In general these were the basic motives that encouraged us to embark on an in‑depth study of heroism in the concentration camps. As I have already said, we thought the subject was one of the key issues in research on the mechanisms of prisoners’ pro‑social behavior in situations of concentration camp stress.

Method and material

We applied the method we had used successfully before, and devised a special questionnaire on “Heroic acts and attitudes in the concentration camp” which invited nearly a hundred survivors to express their opinion in whatever way they liked on this difficult subject. The questionnaire is in the annex to this book. In 1983–1984 we received fairly long accounts from fifteen persons listed in the annex. Their responses were so well‑thought‑out and representative that they were very useful as material on the subject. Some of the answers numbered over ten pages of typescript and contained generalisations and psychological observations as well as descriptions of particular situations in the concentration camp regarded as heroic. The survivors thought the subject of the questionnaire was very relevant, but also very difficult, so the attitude of some of them to the questionnaire itself was ambivalent. The biggest difficulty they had was with assessing a variety of their fellow‑prisoners’ behaviours which now—after the lapse of several decades—they think were heroic. Some survivors found the subject absolutely new and were surprised that it had not been addressed yet in the medical and psychological publications on concentration camps.

This time, too, just as for the material cited in the earlier chapters of this book, we got accounts of heroic behaviors in prisons and other places of torture and oppression, apart from concentration camps. The author of a book published in Paris in 1945 and entitled Oświęcim—pogarda i triumf człowieka. Rzeczy przeżyte (Auschwitz: contempt and triumph of the human being. My experience), presents the stories of many people who were arrested and tortured in various prisons. She refers to her own tragic experience:

“We were arrested on the night of October 21/22, 1942. We were taken to the Gestapo building on the Pomorska in Kraków. I was left in the corridor, and my husband was taken into the room. After some time I was called into the room. I saw my husband suspended from the ceiling by his arms, with his legs tied. One of the Gestapo men was beating him with something that looked like a whip and shouting, “Start talking, or in a moment you’ll see her in this position.” Then I called out, “Hold out! Don’t worry about me!” I was thrown out of the room. When I was being taken to the prison, along with Ignacy Fik, I did not see my husband. On the morning of October 22 one of the Gestapo men who had taken part in our arrest burst into the cell and shouted, “Your husband is dead.” I said it wasn’t true, thinking that he was trying to make me break down. Then he took me into another cell, where I saw my husband lying on the floor.

“Please don’t give my full name, just my initials, P.L. It would make me feel embarrassed, having myself flaunted in that way, though I think this is perhaps the last opportunity for me to tell people what I know about the suffering Polish people went through. I don’t want my name published chiefly because I know it would not be fair to all those who behaved in the same way and who are unable to tell their story because they are dead.”

Most of our respondents have authorized us to publish their names, which we have done at the end of every passage quoted from their replies.

Our second source comes from survivors’ descriptions, stories, and memoirs in publications on concentration camps, and from remarks on heroism in the scientific and general information publications. We have also used Kazimierz Smoleń’s 13‑page typescript with the potted biographies of 56 deceased Polish persons who are considered Auschwitz heroes on account of their activity or attitude. This document is kept in the Auschwitz Memorial Museum. Many of these individuals have been written about extensively in publications on Auschwitz‑Birkenau. The biographies of 14 Auschwitz prisoners, most of whom may certainly be regarded as heroes (including Stanisław Dubois, Konstanty Jagiełło, and Witold Pilecki), are to be found in Jerzy Ptakowski’s book (1985).

Concentration camp heroism

As I have already mentioned, the respondents to our questionnaire had a number of remarks to make and doubts about the concepts of concentration camp bravery and heroism as such. It turned out that survivors understood these ideas in different ways. Survivor Mieczysława Chylińska asks:

“What is bravery, what is heroism? It’s the name, the term for an extraordinary deed in defense of your country, of social solidarity, of universal human values, international values, to protect life, or the well‑being of mankind. It’s a chain reaction with a large component of emotionality, to external stimuli posing a threat to someone’ biological and socio‑moral needs and rights. The emotional component in bravery and heroism is the key ingredient making them what they are.

“Both bravery and heroism are an above‑average type of behavior. Above the standard. They’re rather like miracles, happening in difficult circumstances which call for conduct that surpasses the ordinary psycho‑physical and socio‑moral standards. The nature of such behavior is inwardly derived and voluntary, even though it is stimulated by conditionally derived impulses.

“We speak of bravery in the context of a soldier’s deeds on the battlefield. We also use the words ‘brave’ and ‘bravery’ when we are thinking of deeds which are generally held to be extraordinary, call for an exceptional impetus, and are accomplished for aims other than personal or not just personal, while the impetus is connected with a risk to the person undertaking the deed. ‘Bravery’ and ‘heroism’ are not quite the same; a heroic deed, as distinct from one that is just brave, has to be distinguished by an above‑average level of self‑sacrifice, and it has to transcend the normal biological order of the person who accomplishes it, it has to rise above and predominate over what they need to exist.

“Hence, on the basis of what I have just said, we may assume that heroism, which draws on the properties of bravery, has its own characteristic features. Not every act of bravery is heroic, yet every act of heroism has a lot in common with bravery. What makes a particular behaviour heroic is the danger, and how much danger it involves for the person accomplishing it, and the purpose for which it is undertaken.

“Heroism is a symptom of the supreme measure in an individual’s attitude to another human person, his or her needs, values, and ideals. . . . Heroism on the border between life and death, disease, or disability, is always attended by a varying intensity of physical and spiritual suffering.” (Mieczysława Chylińska)

For Father Konrad Szweda the heroic attitude means something quite different:

“The heroic attitude was manifested by those who suffered in fortitude and serenity, convinced that their ordeal had a supra‑temporal value—that it would bring their country freedom and perpetual glory. . . .

“I observed at close hand prisoners who sacrificed their physical and spiritual powers to save others. I saw them being scorched with a red‑hot metal rod, trampled into the mud, debilitated by hunger. I could not understand how people who had lost their fingers and toes through frostbite, or had no lips or ears could work yoked up to a metal cart and made to pull it, with a whip over their backs. I thought to myself that I was seeing bravery displayed in their work.”

In the concentration camp conditions, attitudes and behaviours which would not have been remarkable in normal conditions acquired the features of bravery. So it was the ambient reality that endowed particular behaviours with features of bravery. That’s how inmates saw it. In his description of such behaviors Edward Hanke, a Sosnowitz and Dachau survivor, quoted a passage from an essay by Wincenty Spaltenstein:

“Finally there was a considerable number of noble people whose character not only remained uncorrupted by oppression, but on the contrary, lit up and shone all the more brightly when they were made to suffer. These heroes, or maybe even saints, helped their fellows at work, eased their lot, and shared their food and cigarettes with them. They comforted and consoled those who were troubled and oppressed, even though they were suffering no less themselves. Almost in every block there were generous individuals of this type who stood out and set an example to their colleagues.” (Hanke, 1968)

You would have thought that the decision to escape from the camp and putting the idea into practice, which was the most dangerous thing you could try to do, would have been considered a brave deed. That’s what an outside observer or reader of stories of escapes might think.

“Those who organized escapes were in mortal danger for the whole of the preparations. One survivor said that even the thought of escaping was liable to punishment; they were under the dreadful stress caused by the sight of fellow‑prisoners, and sometimes even members of their families being tortured and killed in reprisals for escapes.” (Leśniak E., Leśniak R., 1976)

However, as we learn from this publication, the “heroes” who managed to escape did not consider what they had done an example of heroism or bravery. Quite the contrary, some thought it was a sign of their anxiety and fear of the ordeals they would have to go through in the camp. One survivor said outright that he decided to escape out of fear, he thought he would stand a better chance of survival if he escaped; it was not heroism at all, it was simply out of fear, you would be shot if you were caught.

Not surprisingly, after a long time many of those who did escape developed a feeling of guilt over their fellow‑prisoners. Their feeling of guilt could be so profound that it would even be manifested in their dreams and nagging memories.

Prisoners who stayed in the camp viewed escapes in an entirely different way. This was especially true of those who were the victims of the selections which were held every time there was an escape, as those who were selected were killed. Escapes are a spectacular example of how the same thing could be assessed in different ways, depending on a prisoner’s point of view and the consequences for him or her.

These observations show that the semantic range for the words “heroism” and “bravery” as applicable in the concentration camps exceeded the general definitions available in dictionaries. The word “heroism” is derived from the Greek word heros, meaning a demigod, a hero associated with the concept of bravery, and that is how the dictionaries put it. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “heroism” as “heroic conduct especially as exhibited in fulfilling a high purpose or attaining a noble end.” Its synonyms include “bravery,” “courageousness,” “daring,” “daringness,” “dauntlessness,” “doughtiness,” “fearlessness,” and “ valour.” A hero is “a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities” (Merriam-Webster Online), and for his self-sacrificing attitude to others. The synonyms of the adjective “brave” include “bold,” “courageous,” “dauntless,” “doughty,” “fearless,” “gallant,” “greathearted,” “heroic” and “heroical,” “intrepid,” “lionhearted,” “manful,” “stalwart,” “stout,” “stouthearted,” “undauntable,” “undaunted,” “valiant,” and “valorous.” So “bravery” means “a deed or attitude proper to a hero,” “courage,” and “fortitude.”

Only now can we clearly see the difference between true heroism and heroics, true bravery and bravado, in other words unwanted heroism or bravery, a false notion of courage which may needlessly put other people’s lives at risk.

In the realities of the concentration camp the two most important components of the concept of heroism were the exceptional nature of the deed or conduct compared to what was “usual” in the camp, and secondly—its self‑sacrificing nature. The heroic deed or attitude was a sacrifice made for the sake of a higher value, for another person, their survival, to save their life or help them recover from a disease, even—or maybe especially—at the cost of the hero’s own life.

The symbolism of Maximilian Kolbe’s deed

What happened in Auschwitz in the summer of 1941 soon acquired the attributes of a symbol: the moment it was done Father Maximilian Maria Kolbe’s deed turned into a symbol of heroism, of humanity transcending the seemingly impenetrable barbed wire of the concentration camp. For that deed there were no bounds at the time it was done, and there are none today. What Father Maximilian accomplished in the camp is the first thing that comes to mind, almost instinctively, to anyone who thinks of heroism during the Second World War. So it comes as no surprise that this was the episode at the focal point of the materials we collected and the replies to our questionnaire on heroism. All that came later, and even things that happened earlier in the concentration camps, were compared and considered with reference to Father Kolbe’s deed. He himself and his deed have become something of a natural, or maybe supernatural measure of human conduct, the moral verdict on the concentration camps.

Although so much has been written on the subject, especially in connection with Father Kolbe’s beatification and later his canonization—for now he is officially a Catholic Saint—nevertheless he continues to be a fascinating character, inviting us again and again to take a new look, to reassess and reinterpret him afresh. The personal accounts made by Father Kolbe’s fellow‑prisoners, eye‑witnesses who lived side by side with him and are still alive today, are of special value. So we shall ask them for their memories and observations, for a testimonial to the event which endowed death in the concentration camp with a sense.

Eye witnesses

Probably the most detailed description comes from Father Kolbe’s friend, Mieczysław Kościelniak, the graphic artist who made the concentration camp drawings that later became famous.

“Roll call started. It was found that two men were missing, the baker Kłos and his mate, who had escaped from work in the fields at Harmęże.

“Our block was surrounded by armed SS‑men with dogs. We were out on roll call, waiting for the selection. . . . After one or two had been selected from the front, the top row would take a couple of steps forward to make a passage for the Lagerführer to select the next ones. He had a little whip, for of course he was always accompanied by his dog, a fine Alsatian, and he would point at someone and say, ‘Na, komm, mein Lieber, du musst heute sterben’ (Now, come along, my dear fellow, today you must die). But he didn’t say it to all of them, at some he just pointed with his finger. . . .

“Then I heard someone sobbing and moaning, ‘Oh, my mother, oh, my children, oh, my wife, and I have to die!’ and begging for his life to be saved. . . . His face was familiar, I had seen him in the block, but I couldn’t remember his name. For a brief moment the Lagerführer was sort of dumbfounded. Suddenly another man broke the silence . . . I looked left. They had passed me by, they hadn’t selected me—and then I saw my friend Father Maximilian, about four or five meters away from where I was standing, making the rows move aside. He stepped out in front of the top row, stood to attention, put his cap to his right ear in compliance with the camp rules, and reported to Fritsch that he wanted to die instead of his colleague, who had a wife and children.

“Then Palitzsch, Fritsch, and other SS‑men ran up to Father Kolbe and grabbed him by the forearms, thinking it was an act of despair or madness, but Kolbe calmly said the same thing again.

“And then Fritsch responded by shouting, ‘Bist du verrückt? Bist du Idiot?’ (Are you mad? Are you an idiot?) ‘Who are you?’
‘I am a Catholic priest, a monk,’ came the reply.
‘And you want to die for that man?’ asked Fritsch.
‘Yes, I am single. But he has a wife and children. He wants to live for them, they will need him.’

“The whole episode lasted no more than a few seconds. Fritsch ordered Gajowniczek to go back to his row, while Kolbe was led off to the left wing, to those who had been condemned. As far as I can remember, 11 men were selected and taken to Block 11 (at that time it was still numbered Block 13). I remember Father Kolbe walking at the back of the group. He raised his hand up to say farewell to us. . . .

“For some time talk went round the camp about the episode. Not for too long, because every one of us was expecting to die. Life in the concentration camp kind of damped down that staggering scene. Thousands more went on to die—tortured to death, shot, or gassed. Then thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions more. . . . ” (Kościelniak)

“I’d like to recall a great man, a priest and monk who was my friend, and whose heroic death I was destined to witness. It’s a great privilege for me to be able to hand down to posterity this grain of truth about him. This man, or seemingly not a man, just an anonymous camp number, saved humanity which had been trodden down in Auschwitz. He saved it not only from physical destruction but also from spiritual annihilation. And it turned out that he survived, and his deed became a symbol of the four million martyrs of Auschwitz, or perhaps a symbol of all those whom Hitler’s German Fascism condemned to death. . . .” (Jaszczyk, 1982)

Few and far between are the statements made by the man who survived the concentration camp in exchange for the death of Maximilian Kolbe. His reticence in word and deed is perhaps an outcome of his bewilderment, hence also his failure to remember the exact circumstances of the selection, as well as an expression of the burden which it is his lot imperceptibly to bear. In one of his interviews Gajowniczek said:

“We were out on a penal roll call, the prisoner who had escaped had not been caught. Our block, No. 14a, was kept out on roll call until the morning. During the selection every one of us turned into a pillar of salt, into stone, a block of wood. I didn’t feel anything, I was in some kind of nothingness. I was one of those who were selected. When he pointed at me I said I had a wife and children, and that they would be left orphans. Father Maximilian Kolbe was standing near me. He heard these words, and after I had been led out and put into the selected group he left his rank of his own accord, went up to Fritsch and just stood there. Fritsch asked, ‘What does that Polish pig want?’ Father Kolbe said that he wanted to go instead of me: ‘He has a wife and children and his family needs him, but I don’t have a family, I can go instead of him.’”(Leszczyński and Siemieński, 1982)

That’s more or less the whole of the statement made by the eye-witness and main participant of the incident that determined all that followed. Perhaps not many of the other prisoners realized its momentousness immediately, but it was basically a simple situation.

The painter and graphic artist Mieczysław Kościelniak, a graduate of the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, who had been arrested for his involvement in the Union of Armed Struggle (Polish Związek Walki Zbrojnej, one of the Polish underground organisations), was prisoner No. 16161, a number not very far removed from Father Kolbe’s Auschwitz number, so it was no wonder that they met and became friends. Kościelniak made holy pictures for Father Kolbe’s pastoral ministry in the camp. Here are some of his recollections:

“On Sundays or at times when we were not working, especially after evening roll call, Father Maximilian used to get small groups of us together and talk to us. . . . Almost always it was about Poland. That Poland would rise again, and that it would be a new country, different from what it was before—there would be more justice than before. He was always keeping our faith up and reinforcing it, telling us that we would survive, or that many of us would survive and live to see a new, restored Poland. He encouraged us to persevere, to do our very best to keep ourselves from breaking down and collapsing. Here we were like soldiers, he used to say, only it was a different kind of front, a special front. For as long as we lived we had to persevere in our post, as Polish people. He kept telling us that evil and atrocity could not possibly win. . . .”

“What I found astonishing about Father Kolbe was his extraordinary serenity and spiritual tranquility. He didn’t seem to be apprehensive or afraid at all, which is what you could see in most of us. He was calm and cheerful.” (Jaszczyk, 1982)

Other survivors’ memories have also contributed to what we know about Father Maximilian. Here are a few details and episodes:

“He was unshaven and emaciated, but full of peace and goodness, and that’s what people noticed in him. I often met him in the camp, especially after roll call, we’d walk together and talk. . . .” (Father Z. Ruszczak)

“Maximilian Kolbe used to transport sand on a wheelbarrow. I wanted to do the job for him, but the kapo noticed and each of us got 25 strokes of the stick. Afterwards I had to get in the wheelbarrow and Kolbe had to push it along.” (H. Sienkiewicz)

“He had had his face beaten and bruised, but when I asked what I could do for him he said he was all right. . . . (F. Targosz)

“He admitted that he was a priest and refused to go to hospital, so that another prisoner could go instead. That’s what his mentality was like right from the start. . . .” (Dr. R. Diem)

“He was in bed, running a fever. Whenever you asked him how he was he always said he was fine. He never complained even though he’d been beaten up and was in great pain. He used to say that you have to know how to take suffering, not teach others on the positive values of suffering.” (K. Szweda)

These stories were related by Auschwitz survivors in a TV recording entitled Miłością zniewolony (Enslaved by love, Leszczyński and Siemieński, 1982)

Father Kolbe’s attitude was an outcome of his profound thought and the specific hierarchy of values he adhered to and promoted before he found himself in the camp, although of course in the camp it could certainly have been astonishing.

Maximilian Kolbe lived in full awareness of what human sanctity means. He could tell the difference between the features of human greatness and holiness. In 1922 he wrote an essay on this subject, “Wielkość a świętość” (Greatness and Sanctity), in which he said:

“Every saint is a great man or woman, but not every great man was also a saint, even though he or she may have rendered tremendous service to mankind. . . . Geniuses and saints have a lot in common. Both rise up over society and cannot help drawing attention to themselves for being extraordinary. . . . If they reach the peak they are after, they acquire imitators, who will fix their gaze upon them and try to follow in their footsteps as best they can. And both the saint’s and the genius’ memory passes down from generation to generation.

“But there is a fundamental difference between a saint and a genius whose aim is not sainthood. His or her goal is fame, and it is for the sake of fame, to be admired, that he or she applies intellect, gives up time, employs skills, and sometimes has to sacrifice a lot. . . .

“On the other hand, the saints has only the glory of God in mind. They do not care what people will think and are above all that. They put the faculties of their body and soul under control, they subordinate their body to their mind, and submit their mind to the rule of God. That is why they enjoy the peace of victory. . . .”

Kolbe also observed a great difference between their respective attitudes to sickness and suffering:

“Should sickness come or old age oppress him or her, the genius may cease to be a genius, their intellectual powers will diminish. But the saints will go on, continuing to progress regardless of state of health or age, and indeed, illness and vicissitude serve them as a ladder to attain perfection; in the crucible of adversity they are purified like gold. . . .

“Not everyone can become a genius, but the road to sainthood stands open to all.” (Kolbe, 1922)

“Father Kolbe was spared nothing. He suffered everything that other prisoners went through: he was beaten and abused, shouted and yelled at just like the other prisoners.

“He was put into the Babice group. His boss was Krott, who took a special dislike to Father Maximilian. He hated him so much that he would set him work that was so difficult that one day it nearly killed him. Krott ordered Father Kolbe to carry such a heavy load of branches that it was too much for him. When he collapsed under this burden, Krott kicked him in the face and all over his body, rolled the wood on top of him and left. Workmates carried the unconscious priest to the sick room, where he stayed a fortnight. . . .

“This is the context in which Father Maximilian’s deed—the decision to die of starvation for the sake of another person—should be viewed. It was a decision that went beyond fear, beyond clinging on to life at any cost. Testimony that a person can keep their humanity even in the most inhumane conditions.” (Maliński, 1983)

Adam Jurkiewicz (Auschwitz number 17924), a prisoner from the same block as Father Kolbe, was another eye‑witness. His account differs somewhat from the others, but it is striking for its minute details and for its description of the way the torturers reacted and behaved. It also gives an insightful picture of the two inmates, Father Kolbe and Franciszek Gajowniczek. Here is Adam Jurkiewicz’s story:

“Father Kolbe’s deed made a lasting impression on my memory for a different reason than the ones generally given. I was an eye‑witness of the incident, as I was in the same block as St. Maximilian and Gajowniczek, the prisoner whose life he saved. I was there at the selection of ten men from our block for a prisoner’s escape, and since I was in the front row during that roll call I saw it all and remember the whole course of events.

“Lagerführer Fritsch himself was conducting the selection. He walked slowly past each row of prisoners from our block, looked each man straight in the eyes and waved his hand to order the prisoner he had selected to step out of the rank. The poor unfortunate was led out onto the other side of the street, where there was a group of SS‑men attending the evening roll call. Each of the selected prisoners was made to stand in the row until there were ten of them. When he had finished the selection the Lagerführer joined the SS‑men on the other side of the street. All the prisoners were standing to attention in their ranks.

“Suddenly I saw a prisoner I did not know coming out of the back rows of our block and slowly walking up to the Lagerführer and the group of SS‑men. No one reacted to his moving out of line. Neither the block functionary responsible for discipline on the man’s block nor the Blockführers next to the Lagerführer tried to stop the prisoner. This breach of the iron discipline imposed in the camp was such a shock to all that both prisoners and SS‑men stood watching what was going on as if they were hypnotized, not believing their own eyes, just watching that prisoner slowly marching forward. Later I learned that the prisoner who had dared to violate the rules of the camp was a Catholic priest, Father Maximilian Kolbe.

&lquo;As no one had stopped him from carrying out what he intended to do, he came right up to the commandant, stopped at the prescribed distance away from him, took his cap off and said something to him. At a distance of about 20 to 30 meters away, I could not hear the words he said. After a while, presumably in answer to a question put to him, the prisoner put his left arm out, turned to the row of the ten condemned men, and pointed at one of them. The Lagerführer went up to them with the prisoner, ordered the one Father Kolbe had pointed to to go back to his rank, and Father Kolbe took his place with the condemned men. They were immediately led off to Block 11.

“For his courage, Father Maximilian earned my respect, and I think the respect of everyone else watching the incident. By walking out of his rank without being summoned and with the intention of going right up to the Lagerführer he broke the fundamental rules of the concentration camp, which we slaves were expected to keep without question, as we were only to do what we were told and had no rights at all. When he decided to leave his file, in theory Father Kolbe had no chance at all of getting to the Lagerführer and putting his request to him. He should have been beaten up straightaway by the functionary prisoners or Blockführers, and it should never have come to a prisoner being allowed to get right up to the Lagerführer and talk to him in the roll call square without being called up, and in full view of all the prisoners and SS‑men. . . . It was an absolutely incredible sight.” (Adam Jurkiewicz)

We also know a lot about the way Father Kolbe died in that Auschwitz bunker. That, too, was an extraordinary moment against the backdrop of the general anonymity of death in the concentration camp and the usual indifference to it. Jan Józef Szczepański would later write:

“Prisoner Kolbe died a slow death. He had tuberculosis, and only one of his lungs was working. Before his imprisonment he considered every day a gift, and here he had to be killed off with an injection of carbolic acid after ten days of slow death, and as one of the last three condemned men from Block 14 still alive. For ten long days the whole camp knew he was dying, aware of his prolonged death, which had not been the outcome of ill fate or random chance, but the result of his own choice, a voluntary and effective ransom made for the life of another prisoner. A brilliant aura surrounded this death, despite its horrific cruelty. . . . The death of being consummated in the dungeons of Block 14 was not the death of worms trampled into the mud. It was a drama and a rite. A purifying sacrifice. . . .

“Father Maximilian Kolbe’s deed marked an overpowering turning point. Above all because of its immediate and self‑evident effectiveness. The self‑sacrifice of one man’s life saved the life of another man, a stranger. . . . Life redeemed by another’s death was restored to its value. Death which brought life lost the characteristics of wretched meaninglessness. And that slow process of a man dying, before the eyes of the whole camp—not in disgrace but absorbed in supreme contemplation, in the dignity of a choice deliberately made. . . .

“There can be no doubt that the source of Rajmund Kolbe’s heroism was his faith. Not only did it arm him with fortitude, but it also offered him a ready model of behavior, a model which could serve as an example and a symbol. . . . As a Christian, he was laying down his life for his brother and fellow‑man, witnessing unto the Gospel principle of love of one’s neighbour, defying the laws of hatred and contempt.” (Szczepański, 1983)

“Father Maximilian’s ordeal of death in the bunker of Auschwitz went on for ten days. On August 14, the vigil of the Feast of the Assumption, his torturers hastened his death with a phenol injection. Father Kolbe died peacefully, trustfully, fearlessly, and with no ill words against his tormentors. On August 15, the celebration of the Immaculate Virgin, his body was burned, and his ashes scattered in the four corners of the world. But the more rigorously his earthly existence was annihilated, the more powerfully his spirit rose up and his fame spread, until it encircled the whole earth. . . .” (Braun, 1983)

As perceived by fellow-prisoners

Father Kolbe’s death gave rise to an extraordinary feeling in the camp itself before news of it reached the outside world. Andrzej Strzelecki would write:

“Maximilian Kolbe seems to have foreseen the significance of his deed; most probably he felt in advance that it would be talked about in the community of Auschwitz prisoners and later beyond the barbed wire. For the prisoners of Auschwitz oppressed by the burden of everyday life in the camp, the death of their fellow‑inmates was to some extent ordinary, sometimes they didn’t show much interest even in the death of those who shared most intimately in their fate, but word of the death of Father Kolbe passed from mouth to mouth. The prisoners who were taken out of Auschwitz helped to spread news of it even to other concentration camps, such as Buchenwald.” (Strzelecki, 1984)

As perceived by his fellow‑prisoners, Father Kolbe’s deed suddenly showed that concentration camp death need not be humiliating, debasing, and completely bereft of meaning. Neither did it have to be anonymous nor stand for the vanquishing of the prisoner.

Despite the clarity of Father Kolbe’s attitude, it is still hard for people today to get a full understanding of what he did. There was a fundamental difference between him and other cases of people sacrificing their lives that we hear about from various parts of the world. In Kolbe’s case it was a gesture of affirmation, not despair or rebellion. “It was a heroic gesture of love in the face of hatred,” Szczepański would write (1983), adding, “And it was a gesture made not for the world to see and for its conscience to be shaken out of its slumber and forced to make judgment, but for God.”

But its most profound truth will remain a mystery forever, a mystery we shall never fathom to the full, known only to Father Maximilian as it was revealed to him on that night in Auschwitz.

An interpretation

Stróżewski (1981) presented the special complexity and uniqueness of the psychological and moral situation of concentration camp prisoners:

“For such is the rule of extreme situations: the more the chances of protest against evil are reduced, the greater the values—tending to infinity—of that protest when it happens. When prisoner No. 16670 stepped out of his rank in order to ask to be sent to death by starvation instead of another man, he inevitably moved heaven and earth, whether he wanted to or not. His act of consent to die out of love for another challenged the entire system in the service of humanity’s destruction. It showed that the system was not absolute (since only that which is most intimately bound with the very essence of Reality may be absolute), nor was its power unlimited. It showed that a human being could do more . . ., that even his own death and the evil that was coercing him into it could serve to subordinate that evil and its power to him, if he carried the supreme values within himself and persisted in their service in spite of everything. His act was also a manifestation of the most essential protest and the truest dialectics of progress encapsulated in the Gospel principle of non‑resistance to evil. Was it not grounded in the postulate of transcending the coercive situation thrust upon him and raising it up to a higher level, on the grounds of an ordinary, though heroically infused avowal, ‘I can do more?’”

Not only has the lapse of time not obliterated those memories, but paradoxically it has actually intensified them. The Auschwitz epilogue to Father Kolbe’s life continues and will continue to stir consciences and inspire thought whenever the sense of suffering and death is discussed. Kępiński and Kłodziński (1973) wrote that by sacrificing his life for another person Kolbe “became a symbol for the transformation of the egoistic attitude into the altruistic attitude. A symbol of all those positive forces operating in the concentration camp and defying the era of the Übermensch.”

This idea would be taken up by Cardinal Józef Glemp in the homily he preached at Mass in the Franciscan monastery at Niepokalanów following Father Maximilian’s canonization:

“Father Maximilian Kolbe was victorious over himself. One could say that he vanquished his own weakness. He became strong. He became a powerful champion surpassing the human stature.” (Glemp, 1982)

As time has gone by the value of the victory in the death of Father Kolbe, albeit paid for by death, has been highlighted more and more. In the midst of war, in the hell of the most monstrous of the concentration camps there came to light “signs of the times” which tried and victoriously tested human love through a human death.

On October 11, 1982 Pope John Paul II addressed a Polish audience and said to them:

“Yet at the same time through this man universal horizons have been opened up for us. St. Maximilian is a witness to his age and a ‘sign of the times.’ At Auschwitz that difficult time of tragedy, marked by a horrendous trampling of human dignity, generated its own sign of salvation. Love proved to be stronger than death, more powerful than the anti‑human system. Human love was victorious in the place where the hatred and contempt of mankind seemed to be winning. And the victory of love won at Auschwitz carried a special manifestation of the victory won on Calvary. People experienced the death of their Fellow‑Prisoner not as yet another human disaster, but as a salvific sign of our times, of our age.” (John Paul II, 1983)

This singular aspect of Father Maximilian’s death was already being appreciated by other prisoners in the camp, and the culmination to that evaluation came in Kolbe’s canonization as the martyr of Auschwitz. In his homily during Father Kolbe’s canonization John Paul II asked what happened in that starvation bunker on August 14, 1941:

“People were observing what was going on in Auschwitz. And even though it must have seemed to them that the companion who had shared in their ordeal had ‘died,’ even though in human terms they could have regarded his death as his ‘destruction,’ yet they knew that it was not just ‘a death.’ Maximilian did not ‘die,’ he ‘gave up his life for . . . his brother.’ In that death, horrific by human standards, was the fullness of the ultimate grandeur of human achievement and human choice: he went to his death out of love. . . . That is precisely why the death of Maximilian Kolbe became a sign of victory. . . . And that is why by the power of my apostolic authority I have decided that Maximilian Maria Kolbe, hitherto venerated on the grounds of his beatification as a Confessor, should henceforth be venerated as a Martyr.” (John Paul II, 1983 a)

What made Father Maximilian Kolbe’s deed so exceptional was that in the concentration camp, which was a place of utter enslavement, he accomplished the need for “inner freedom.” And thereby he showed that there are no situations, not even those that are life‑threatening, in which the human individual is completely deprived of the potential to choose and to be victorious.

End of Part One

Translated from original article: Ryn, Z., Kłodziński, S. Postawy i czyny heroiczne w obozach koncentracyjnych. Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1986.