One of St. Maximilian Kolbe’s famous lines was, “Only Love Creates.”
He should know as he gave his life for a fellow inmate at The Auschwitz Concentration Camp in July 1941. Kolbe had been at the concentration camp since February.
Franciszek Gajowniczek was one of the 10 men selected to be executed in reprisal for a prisoner’s escape from the barracks. He cried out: “What will happen to my wife and children?”
The love of St. Maximilian Kolbe responded with the saint stepping forward and offering to take his place. The 10 prisoners were placed, naked, in a starvation chamber.
Creating a New Life
Reports from survivors and camp guards state St. Maximilian Kolbe led the men in prayers and singing hymns to Mary. Eventually, six of the prisoners starved. The other four, including Saint Maximilian Kolbe, were hastened to death by an injection of carbolic acid.
Love helped create a life for the man St.Maximilian Kolbe saved. Franciszek Gajowniczek would miraculously survive Auschwitz, and would later be present at Kolbe’s canonization in 1982.
Kolbe was beatified as Confessor of the Faith in 1971. He was canonized as a martyr by Pope John Paul II (who himself lived through the German occupation of Poland) in 1981.
Pope John Paul II said Kolbe should be recognized as a martyr because the Nazi regime was an act of hatred against religious faith, making Kolbe’s death a martyrdom. At his canonization, in 1982 St. Pope John Paul II said:
“Maximilian did not die but gave his life … for his brother.”
As for the beard
St. Maximilian Kolbe shaved off his beard before his arrest. He told a fellow friar to get rid of the beard and place it in the stove. While the friar obeyed, he placed it in a stove without a fire. He then came back to retrieve the beard and placed it in a pickle jar,” according to the book Maximilian Kolbe: Martyr of Charity, by Fr. James McCurry.
It is the only relic of the saint. His body was incinerated in the ovens of Auschwitz.
St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Franciscan friar, establishing a monastery and known for his prolific writings on the faith through his founding of the Militia Immaculata (MI), an evangelization movement identifying with Mary as the Immaculate Conception.
You can see the relic of St. Maximilian Kolbe’s beard at The St. Francis Chapel in Boston, Massachusetts.
