Tags: Maximilian Kolbe

Kolbe: A Saint in Auschwitz

Written by the former parish priest of Dalkey County in Dublin, the play, subtitled The Saint of Auschwitz, recreates the events surrounding Maximilian Maria Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan friar, imprisoned for hiding Jews, volunteered to be executed in Auschwitz in place of a Polish stranger (arbitrarily chosen as one of ten prisoners to die because of an escape), and ministered to other prisoners in the death camp. Kolbe was later named a saint and called "the patron saint of our difficult century."

Kolbe’s Gift

The story of Maximilian Kolbe, a gifted Franciscan priest who offered to take the place of Franek Gajowniczek, a Polish soldier interned in an underground bunker in Auschwitz, 1941. Kolbe died in the soldier’s place. He was canonized in 1982 and declared a martyr of charity.