Father Kowalski

 

114 years ago today (March 13, 1911) Józef Kowalski was born in Siedliska, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austro-Hungarian Empire (today Poland) the seventh of nine children.

In 1922 he began his studies at the Salesian Institute of St. John Bosco in Oświęcim.

Kowalski was ordained a Catholic Priest of the Salesian Order on May 29, 1938 in Krakow.

The outbreak of World War II in 1939 found him in the Parish of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Dębniki.

The Gestapo arrested Father Kowalski on May 23, 1941, along with 11 other Salesians who worked in Kraków.

They were taken to Montelupich Prison and tortured.

Father Kowalski was sent to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp on June 26, 1941 and registered as Prisoner Number 17350.

In Auschwitz he was known as Father Jozef.

At Auschwitz he ministered secretly to his fellow Prisoners in Block 25, and attempted to strengthen their will to survive day-to-day life in the Camp.

He absolved condemned Victims, usually in secret, but at least once in front of everyone at the moment of mass execution.

At one Roll Call, he was ordered by Blockführer Gerhard Palitzsch to trample upon his rosary when he was discovered with it.

When Father Kowalski refused he was assigned to a Penal Company, a death sentence at Auschwitz. Before leaving for the Penal Company he gave other Prisoners his food.

On July 4 1942 Father Kowalski was mocked, ridiculed and severely beaten by the German Guards for being a Priest and drowned him in a barrel of feces. He was 31 years old.

Pope John Paul II had known Father Kowalski personally before the War, when Kowalski lived and served with the Parish of St. Stanisław Kostka in Dębniki, Kraków.

During one of his return visits to Poland, John Paul II beatified Father Kowalski in Warsaw at a ceremonial three-hour mass of June 13, 1999, attended by President Aleksander Kwasniewski,  in front of 600,000 people.