108 Polish Martyrs of World War II

During the occupation of Poland by the Third Reich, the clergy and committed laypeople were the targets of a coordinated plan of annihilation. As the Catholic faith was considered by the occupier to be the soul of the nation and the cement of Polish moral resistance, the Church suffered violent persecution. The 108 martyrs illustrate the diversity and heroism of this spiritual resistance.

Among the most notable members of this group are: * The Bishops: * Bishop Antoni Julian Nowowiejski (Archbishop-Bishop of Płock) and his auxiliary Bishop Leon Wetmański, both deported and died at the Soldau (Działdowo) concentration camp in 1941. * Bishop Władysław Goral (Auxiliary Bishop of Lublin), deported and died at the Sachsenhausen camp in 1945. * The Priests and Religious: * Father Józef Kowalski, a Salesian priest. Arrested in May 1941 and deported to Auschwitz, he exercised a clandestine ministry as a chaplain there (confessions, secret Masses). Having refused to trample on his rosary despite the guards' orders, he was subjected to terrible torture and finally drowned in a latrine pit in July 1942. * Father Józef Cebula, Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate and superior of the novitiate in Markowice. Having opposed the order to destroy local chapels and statues, he was deported to the Mauthausen camp where he was tortured and shot by a guard in May 1941. * Fathers Marian Górecki and Bronisław Komorowski, priests of the Diocese of Gdańsk, arrested on the very first day of the German invasion (September 1, 1939) and shot at the Stutthof camp on Good Friday, March 22, 1940. * The Laity: * Marianna Biernacka, a 55-year-old mother. During a Gestapo reprisal raid in July 1943, she begged the soldiers to arrest her in place of her daughter-in-law Anna, who was pregnant at the time. Her heroic sacrifice saved the mother and the unborn child. She was shot at Naumowicze on July 13, 1943. * Natalia Tułasiewicz, a teacher and poet. She engaged in clandestine education and volunteered to accompany young Polish women sent to forced labor in Germany in order to provide them with spiritual support. Arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, she was deported to Ravensbrück where she continued to evangelize her fellow prisoners. She was sent to the gas chamber on Holy Saturday, March 31, 1945. * The five young laymen of the Salesian oratory in Poznań (Czesław Jóźwiak, Edward Kaźmierski, Edward Klinik, Franciszek Kęsy, and Jarogniew Wojciechowski), arrested in 1940 for their Christian and patriotic commitment, and guillotined at the Dresden prison on August 24, 1942.

From the end of the war, the reputation of holiness and martyrdom of these 108 victims spread widely among the Polish faithful and within their religious communities. However, the establishment of the communist regime in Poland long hindered the opening of official canonical proceedings. The turning point occurred in June 1987, during the apostolic journey of John Paul II to Poland, when he beatified Bishop Michał Kozal, auxiliary bishop of Włocławek who died in Dachau. This beatification highlighted the need to honor all the witnesses of the faith from this dark period. Under the impetus of Bishop Henryk Muszyński, then bishop of Włocławek, the Polish Bishops' Conference formally introduced the collective cause on January 26, 1992. An independent postulation office was established to unify the diocesan inquiries conducted in 18 different dioceses and within numerous congregations. The diocesan inquiry concluded in 1994, and a monumental file of 96,000 pages was transmitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. On November 20, 1998, the Congress of Theologians validated the reality of their martyrdom.

On March 26, 1999, in the presence of Pope John Paul II, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints promulgated the decree officially recognizing that these 108 servants of God had been killed in odium fidei (out of hatred for the faith), thus attributing to them the title of martyrs. The beatification ceremony was celebrated by Pope John Paul II on June 13, 1999, in Warsaw, in Józef Piłsudski Square, during his seventh apostolic journey to his homeland. Before an assembly of nearly one million faithful, the Pope proclaimed these 108 martyrs of the faith blessed, along with the religious sister Regina Protmann and the layman Edmund Bojanowski. Their common liturgical memorial was set for June 12 in the calendar of the Catholic Church.

In his beatification homily, Pope John Paul II presented these martyrs as models of hope and fidelity: "These blessed martyrs are today inscribed in the history of the holiness of the people of God [...]. As we perform this solemn act, in a certain sense the certainty is revived in us that, regardless of the circumstances, we can win a full victory in all things thanks to Him who loved us." Their spirituality is characterized by a deep union with the sacrifice of Christ, lived in the heart of the concentration camp hell. Whether it was priests celebrating Mass in secret on the roofs of the barracks, nuns persevering in the service of charity, or laypeople offering their lives for their neighbor, all testified that the love of God is stronger than hatred and death. Today, the 108 martyrs are deeply venerated in Poland. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Licheń, located in the Diocese of Włocławek (the diocese most severely tested, having lost nearly half of its priests), houses a chapel specially dedicated to the 108 blessed, which constitutes the main national center of their cult. They remind contemporary generations of the invaluable value of freedom of conscience and fidelity to the Gospel in the face of totalitarian ideologies.