St. Maximilian Kolbe was born Raymond Kolbe in 1894 in Zdunska Wola, Poland. His memory has been immortalized, especially for Catholics, due to his ministry and alleged sacrifice at Auschwitz. Before we get started I would like to state that I am in no way attacking Kolbe himself. From what I’ve read, he was an outstanding person. What I am attacking is the way Holocaust fabulists use his personage to villainize the German people and further bolster the false Holocaust narrative. This is something that Kolbe had no control over.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Kolbe, the following is the orthodox version of his story from Cross Catholic Outreach:
On February 19, 1941, the Germans shut down Niepokolanow and took Kolbe prisoner, shipping him off to Auschwitz. It was there in late July that a prisoner escaped. The commandant of Auschwitz then chose ten men from among the prisoners to go into a starvation bunker as a means of deterring any further escapes. One man exclaimed, “My wife, my children!” It was at the moment that Kolbe stepped from the line and told the commandant that he would take the place of the man with a family. Upon learning that Kolbe was a Catholic priest, the commandant was eager to send him to the bunker and allowed the other man return to the ranks.
While in the starvation bunker Kolbe ministered to the other prisoners, hearing their confessions, praying with them, and preparing them for death. On August 14, presuming that all would be dead after weeks of starvation, soldiers entered the bunker astonished that Kolbe was weak but still alive. They gave him an injection of carbolic acid and he died shortly thereafter. His body and those of his fellow cellmates were cremated the next day, August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary.
This is a perfect story for demonizing Germans and canonizating Kolbe, but is it true?
The story from Cross Catholic is a milder, pared down, and rather less remarkable when compared to the firsthand account. From an article by Else Loeser, I learned that the Auschwitz State Museum claimed that due to the destruction of the majority of the documents by the SS camp administration, the file of death records for Maximilian Kolbe were unavailable. However, the individual document from the registry office (i.e, the “individual certificate”) was. The following is a translation of the letter of the last alleged eyewitness to Kolbe:
Chorow, 27 December 1945
To the administration of the ‘Knights of the Immaculatae’ in Niepokolanow
Upon reading the article ‘Remembrance: the last days of Pastor O. Maximilian Kolbe’ in the December issue of the ‘Knights’, I wish to describe his last days in the underground bunker of the Auschwitz camp.
I was then working as writer and interpreter[!] in the mentioned bunker, and due to this noble man’s extraordinary behaviour in the face of death, which inspired admiration even among the SS men, I still remember his last days exactly.
Block 13, at the right end of the camp, was surrounded by a 6 meter high wall. Under the earth were cells, on the other hand in the ground floor the penal company was located. In many cells, there were small windows and bunks; others had no windows or bunks, and were completely dark. In one of the latter cells in July 1941 after the evening roll call, 10 prisoners were led out of block 14. Before the block, they were ordered to strip naked, after which these poor souls were pushed into the darkness, where 20 unhappy victims from the previous group were already confined, also naked. All new arrivals were led into one cell. Upon being locked into the cells the SS men laughed, ‘You’ll shrink like tulips’. From this day onwards, the prisoners received no food at all. At the daily inspection, the SS men on Block 13 were ordered to take out the dead from the night. I was always present during these visits, since I noted the numbers of the dead and had to interpret possible conversations and requests of the prisoners from Polish into German. [Translator’s note: they were killed in the cruelest manner possible by the Germans, but interpreters were provided to serve as convenient witnesses.] From the cells in which the unhappy victims were located, came loud daily prayers, rosary recitations, and songs in which the prisoners in the neighbouring cells participated. At times, when the SS crew was not present, I went into the bunker to speak to my colleagues and to cheer them up. Heartfelt greetings and songs from the suffering to the Holy Mother could be heard from all entrances to the bunker. I had the feeling I was in church. Father Kolbe spoke, and the prisoners answered in a chorus. They were so deeply absorbed in prayers, that they didn’t even notice the SS men spying on them. They only fell silent when the SS shouted loudly. When the cells were opened, the sufferers begged for a bit of bread or water, but they didn’t get it. When one of the stronger prisoners approached the door, he was struck blows in the abdomen so that he fell over backwards and hit the hard cement floor and was killed, or was shot. The degree of torment the prisoners had to endure before their death is shown by the fact that the latrines were always dry and empty; hence we may conclude that the unfortunates had to drink their own urine due to their great thirst.
Kolbe himself kept himself apart. He didn’t complain, and asked for nothing. He gave. He consoled his fellow prisoners, saying that the departed would be all right, and that the prisoners would be released. Since they were already very weak, they prayed only very softly. During inspections, the priest Kolbe could be seen standing or kneeling in the midst with a peaceful expression, looking out upon the world, while all the others already lay on the floor. The SS, who recognized his dedication and saw that all the others in the cells had died guiltlessly, came to have a great respect for Kolbe and told each other ‘that priest there is really a really decent person. We never had one like him here before’. Thus 2 weeks passed. In the meantime, one after the other died, until after 3 weeks, only 4 were left alive, including Kolbe. That seemed too long to the camp administration. The cell was needed for new victims. Therefore, they fetched the leader of the hospital, a German with the criminal name of Bock, who gave each one of them an injection of carbolic acid in the veins of the left hand. Kolbe, with a prayer on his lips, held out his arm to his murderer. I could not look. Pretending that I had work in the office, I left the room. After the SS had left the room with the murderer, I returned immediately, and found Kolbe in a sitting position with his back against the wall, his eyes open, and his head leaning to one side. The peaceful, pure face was beaming.
Together with the barber on the block, Chlebik, I bore the body of this hero to the washroom. There he was laid into a box and taken away. Thus disappeared the heroic priest of Auschwitz camp, freely sacrificing himself for the father of a family, peaceful and still, praying until the last moment. For several months in the camp, everyone thought of the heroic deed of the priest; the name Kolbe was mentioned at every execution. The impressions I had of this event will remain in my memory forever. I could not confide the details of Kolbe’s last days to the priest K. Szweda, since any violation of secrecy about the building was punished by death. Some time later, the priest Szweda was transferred to Dachau, and we didn’t see him any more. I have just now accidentally received the December issue from my colleagues Hornika from Chorzow, and decided to write this letter immediately. With sincere best wishes and Gods blessings, I remain, Faithfully, Borgowiec Bruno.
According to the eyewitness, Borgowiec Bruno, Kolbe survived for three weeks without food or water. That is just impossible. It is even more impossible considering that Kolbe had been suffering from an active case of tuberculosis that he contracted around 1922. I would also like to point out that drinking urine will actually quicken the dehydration process.
Next, we have the fact that while Kolbe was allegedly in this starvation block, he was given medical treatment in the form of X-rays. According to Loeser:
The death records were lost, of course, but the X-ray records survived. According to these records, Kolbe was X-rayed on two occasions, on 28 July 1941 for the last time! The witness speaks of confinement in a dark cell for 3 weeks, from July to 14 August 1941. That means that Kolbe was taken out of his dark cell to be given a quick X-ray, just before his intended murder! What curious people these Germans are!
The fact that Kolbe was X-rayed on 28 July 1941 proves that his active tuberculosis was given medical treatment, and that he was not held in any “death bunker”, since it is inconceivable that the Germans would have taken him out to X-ray him. This therefore proves that the letter from this “Borgowiec” is a fabrication.
Turns out that Kolbe’s death certificate is available. I can not tell you why the Auschwitz state Museum did not have this record to share with Loeser. My best guess is that since Loeser’s article was published in 1983, the death certificate included with the documents that the Soviet Union released to Westerners in 1988. Yes that’s right, the Kremlin had long blocked Western and Soviet historians from viewing archives. Nothing suspicious about that at all. But I digress. The point here is that on this death certificate Kolbe’s cause of death is written as Myocardinsuffizienz, or heart failure.
How do Holocaust fabulists explain this? From the “Falsifying the hospital records” article on the Aushwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum website, we have this cope:
For example, the camp records state that the cause of death of St. Maximilian Kolbe was myocardia. The putative causes of the death of the underage prisoners Mieczysław Rycaj and Tadeusz Rycyk, killed by phenol injection on January 21, 1943, were bilateral pneumonia and septic pharyngitis.
This claim that the Nazis lied in their documentation is an unverifiable just-so story. Typical.
There is one more piece of “evidence” that Holocaust fabulists have to back up their story. On October 25th of 1946, 5 years after the alleged events surrounding Kolbe’s death happened, Franciszek Gajowniczek gave the following sworn statement:
I drew the lot. With the words, ‘oh, my wife and my children, whom I must leave as orphans….’, I went to the end of the block. I was doomed to go and starve to death in the hunger block. Father Maximilian Kolbe and a Minority Father from Niepokolanow heard these words. He stepped out of the ranks went to the camp leader and tried to kiss his hand (!). “What does the Polish pig want?”, Fritsch asked the interpreter. Father Maximilian pointed to me with his finger, and declared himself ready to go to his death for me. With a corresponding movement of his hand and the word “Aus!”, the camp leader called me out of the ranks of the doomed, and Father Maximilian Kolbe took my place. Shortly afterwards, they led them off to the death cells. They ordered us to go to the blocks. At this point, it was difficult to resist the overpowering impression which gripped me. I — the condemned man — was now to go on living, while another sacrificed himself willingly for me! Was this a dream or reality? … Among our companions in suffering at Auschwitz, only voices of admiration were to be heard for the priest’s heroic sacrifice of his own life for me. I grew up in the Catholic religion, and have kept my belief throughout the hardest times of my life. Only religion gave me strength and hope at these times. Father Maximilian Kolbe’s sacrifice has further strengthened my religious convictions, as well as my attachment to the Catholic Church, which is able to produce such heroes. The only thanks that I can offer my rescuer is a daily prayer, which I say together with my wife.
Why did Gajowniczek wait 5 years to give this statement? One could do much speculating. I also find it hard to believe that if the Nazis were so evil that they would have allowed for the swap in the first place. According to the Holocaust fabulist version of Nazis, Kolbe and Gajowniczek would have been killed on the spot.
In the end, all the evidence we have for Kolbe’s fantastical story is witness testimony, and there are problems with this testimony. There is an actual primary document that directly refutes the story, and all the Holocaust fabulists can do is say the Nazis were lying. Considering the motivation that fabulists have to villainize Nazi Germany, there is no reason to believe their story about Kolbe being tortured and murdered by Nazis.
After I became Catholic this story really confused me at first. I had some Twitter people show me the real evidence a while ago. Here’s a link to a Substack that has even more https://derkreuzfahrer.substack.com/p/maximilian-kolbe
Interesting and in depth article. Thanks for sharing!
Hi, I’m @InceIpapist on Twitter (Dietrich). That article me and my friend Mendel made. I was the one who researched. I’m glad you liked it! Always good to get the info out.
https://twitter.com/inceIpapist?t=2UNzuv5JCwHAuN9dkP2KpA&s=09
Hey. Great piece as always! A question. Are you planning to write a piece on Nuremberg Trials or you already did and I missed it?
There are 35 or so newapaper articles claiming that “6 millions jews are being genocided.” and these newspapers have been using this phrase from 1869 until the “real thing.”
Anyway, great piece as always. Good day.
I’ve written a few:
https://www.holocaust.claims/tag/nuremberg-trials/
>starvation bunker
Often it seems a major goal of ‘Holocaust’ stories is to ascribe all kinds of horrendous, gratuitous cruelty to Germans, I guess to make the extermination claims more believable — the movie Schindler’s List if full of such scenes — somehow it’s not enough for Jews to just go with the obvious truth and say they were forcibly deported to camps and made to live and work in often terrible conditions — the typhus epidemic in Auschwitz II, which during many months of 1942 killed more than a hundred people per day (that’s why the Germans, who were planning to expand the camp, added more cremation capacity), wasn’t bad enough I guess — no, they have to make up stories, e.g. about Mengele injecting dye into their eyeballs.
OT
An interesting thing about Russian archives: Douglas Horne served on the ARRB (Assassination Records Review Board), established by Congress after the Oliver Stone movie JFK — its job was to find, review, and release records related to the assassination — in a video about his work for the ARRB, Horne mentions that the Russians conducted their own investigation, and concluded LBJ was responsible — we know this because the ARRB uncovered an FBI memo describing a presentation about the investigation made to Soviet consular and KGB personnel in NYC — apparently the FBI had manged to bug the consular offices and could eavesdrop on such meetings — per the timeline Horne presented, J Edgar Hoover sat on this information for more than a year before writing it up and sending a copy to LBJ — Horne considered this one of the ‘smoking gun’ documents released by the ARRB — note the memo (which can be examined in the national archives) apparently did not contain specifics about what evidence led the Russians to conclude LBJ was complicit in the assassination of JFK — obviously it would also be very interesting to see the full Soviet era file on the JFK assassination.