Catholic Martyrs of the Holocaust

Catholic Martyrs of the Holocaust

-- By the Rev. Vincent A. Lapomarda, S.J.

o Blessed Teresa Bracco (1924-1944) -- Italian Citizen (Santa Giulia).
o Blessed Titus Brandsma (1881-1942) -- Carmelite priest (Dachau).
o Blessed Marcel Callo (1921-1945) -- Jocist layman (Mathausen).
o Blessed Jozef Cebula(1902-1941) -- Oblate priest (Mathausen)
o Blessed Stefan Wicenty Frelichowski (1913-1945) -- Polish pastor (Dachau)
o Blessed Jakob Gapp (1897-1943) -- Marianist priest (Ploetzensee).
o Blessed Nikolaus Gross (1898-1945) -- Lay editor (Ploetzensee).
o Blessed Franz Jagerstatter (1907-1943) -- Austrian Conscientious Objector
o Blessed Jozef Jankowski (1910-1941) -- Pallotine priest (Auschwitz)
o Blessed Hilary Januszewski (1907-1945) -- Carmelite priest (Dachau)
o Blessed Helene Kafka (1894-1943) -- Franciscan nun (Vienna).
o Saint Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941) -- Franciscan priest (Auschwitz).
o Blessed Alice Kotowska (1900-1939) -- Resurrection nun who helped Jews (forest of Piasnicy).
o Blessed Michal Kozal (1893-1943) -- Polish bishop (Dachau).
o Blessed Karl Leisner (1915-1945) -- German priest (Dachau).
o Blessed Bernhard Lichtenberg (1875-1943) -- German monsignor (Dachau).
o Blessed Alphonsus Mary Mazurek (1891-1944) -- Polish Carmelite (Nawojowa Gora)
o Blessed Otto Neururer (1882-1940) -- Austrian priest (Buchenwald).
o Blessed Anastazy Jakub Pankiewicz (1882-1942) -- Franciscan priest (Dachau)
o Blessed Julia Rodzinska (1899-1944) -- Dominican nun (Stutthof)
o Blessed Jozef Stanek (1916-1944) -- Pallotine priest (Warsaw)
o Blessed Boleslaw Strzelecki (1896-1941) -- priest of Radom (Auschwitz)
o Saint Edith Stein (1891-1942) -- Carmelite nun (Auschwitz). On the same day of her death, August 9, 1942, there also perished at Auschwitz Rosa Stein (1883-1942), her sister, and six members of the Loeb Family all Trappists (three nuns, two priests, and one brother).
o 108 Polish Martyrs of World War II (1939-1945): Among them were Anton Julian Nowowiejski (1858-1941), an aged archbishop who died in the German death camp at Dzialdowo, where he refused to step on a crucifix; Henryk Kaczorowski (1888-1942), seminary rector at Wloclawek; Ewa Noiszewka (1885-1942) and Marta Wolowska (1879-1942), two Sisters of the Immaculate Conception who were executed at Gora Pietrelewicka in Slonim for hiding Jewish childlren; and Maria Anna Biernacka (1888-1943), one of nine lay persons (she was a benefactress of the Redemptorists in Warsaw) who chose to be executed (she was shot on 13 July 1943 near Grodno) to save her unborn grand child. These were beatified along with George Kaszyra (1904-1943) and Anthony Leszczewicz (1890-1943), Marian priests, (they perished among some 1,500 victims burned alive by the Nazis in Roscia, Belarus, on 17-18 February 1943), whose causes had been opened, on 26 January 1992 in Poland. On June 13, 1999,Pope John Paul II beatified them (including two other bishops, Wladyslaw Goral (1898-1945) and Leon Wetmanski (1886-1941) and many priests, like Jozef Pawlowski (1890-1942) of Kielce who was executed by hanging in Dachau where he had been jailed for helping Jews and Zygmunt Pisarski (1902-1943) in Lublin, who was shot for risking his life to save communists from death; and religious, among them Capuchins like Anciet Koplinski (1875-1941); Franciscans like Bruno Zembol (1905-1942), and Salesians like Jozef Kowalski (1911-1942), who died at Auschwitz, not to mention nuns like Maria Antonina Kratochwil (1881-1942), a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame (she helped Jewish girls in prison), and Maria Klemensa Staszewska (1890-1943), executed at Auschwitz because she hid Jewish girls in a convent. While fifteen of those victims were martyred at Auschwitz and forty-three at Dachau, among the others beatified were also five young Catholic men, The Martyrs of Poznan, who were associated with the Salesians were beheaded at Dresden for their part in resistance activities: Czeslaw Jozwiak (1919-1942), Edward Kazmierski (1919-1942), Edward Klinik (1919-1942), Franciszek Kesy (1920-1942), and Jarogniew Wojciechowski (1922-1942). Although at least eighty Polish Jesuits were martyred by the Nazis, none was included among the thirty-three religious beatified that day. However, it is expected that they will be included in a special ceremony at a future date when the preparation of their causes is concluded.
o Blessed Emilian Kovtch (1884-1944), a priest from the Ukrainian Eparchy of Stanislaviv (Ivano-Frankivsk) who died in ovens of Majdanek (Poland) concentration camp, as a victim of the Nazis in 1944, was beatified by Pope John Paul II on his trip to the Ukraine in June 2001.

http://www.holycross.edu/departments/history/vlapomar/hiatt/martyrs.htm