In the summer of 1941 a Polish Franciscan friar, prisoner number 16670, stepped forward during a roll call in Auschwitz and offered to die in place of a man he did not know. His name was Maksymilian Maria Kolbe. He was murdered two weeks later in the basement of Block 11. The man whose life he saved, Franciszek Gajowniczek, survived the war.
Who was Maksymilian Kolbe?
Kolbe was born Rajmund Kolbe in 1894 in Zduńska Wola, in the part of Poland then ruled by the Russian Empire. He joined the Franciscan order as a young man, studied in Rome and was ordained a priest. He became known for his work as a publisher and preacher. In 1927 he founded Niepokalanów, a large Franciscan friary near Warsaw, which printed religious magazines read by hundreds of thousands of people. In the early 1930s he spent several years as a missionary in Japan.
Arrest and deportation to Auschwitz
After the German invasion of Poland, Niepokalanów sheltered refugees, among them Jews. Kolbe was briefly arrested in 1939 and released. On 17 February 1941 the Gestapo arrested him again, together with several other friars, and held him in the Pawiak prison in Warsaw. On 28 May 1941 he was deported to Auschwitz and registered as prisoner number 16670.
Priests were treated with particular brutality in the camp. Kolbe was assigned to heavy labour and beaten by the SS and the kapos. Fellow prisoners later remembered that he shared his food and heard confessions in secret.
The roll call of July 1941
At the end of July 1941 a prisoner escaped from Kolbe’s block. As a reprisal, the SS selected ten men from the same block to be starved to death in the bunker of Block 11. One of them, Franciszek Gajowniczek, a Polish army sergeant, cried out that he had a wife and children.
Kolbe then stepped out of the line and asked Karl Fritzsch, the SS officer in charge of the prisoners’ camp, to let him take Gajowniczek’s place. He said he was a Catholic priest and had no family. Fritzsch agreed. Kolbe went to the starvation cell with the other nine men.
In the starvation cell
The condemned were locked in a cell in the basement of Block 11 without food or water. According to later testimony from a prisoner who worked in the bunker, Kolbe led the others in prayer and hymns. After about two weeks, he and a few others were still alive. On 14 August 1941 the SS killed them by phenol injection. Kolbe’s body was burned in the crematorium of the main camp. Read more about the bunker in our article on Block 11 and the Death Wall.
Franciszek Gajowniczek
Gajowniczek survived Auschwitz and later Sachsenhausen, and was liberated in 1945. His two sons, however, did not survive the war. For the rest of his life he spoke about the man who had died for him. He was present in Rome when Kolbe was declared a saint, and he died in 1995 at the age of 93.
Saint of Auschwitz
Pope Paul VI beatified Kolbe in 1971. In 1982 Pope John Paul II, himself a Pole, canonised him as a martyr. Kolbe has since become one of the best-known figures connected with Auschwitz, and a symbol of self-sacrifice in the camp.
His story is important, but it is also worth seeing it in context. Kolbe was one of about 140,000 to 150,000 Poles deported to Auschwitz, about half of whom died there. Most of the people murdered in the camp were Jews, killed in the gas chambers of Birkenau without ever being registered. Remembering Kolbe means remembering an exceptional act inside a system designed to destroy human solidarity. Read more about the victims of Auschwitz.
Kolbe’s cell today
The cell where Kolbe died, in the basement of Block 11, can be seen during a visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. Pope John Paul II prayed there during his visit in 1979, and Pope Francis in 2016. It is a place of quiet even on the busiest days.
Frequently asked questions
A Polish Franciscan friar, prisoner 16670 in Auschwitz, who volunteered to die in place of another prisoner in 1941.
Franciszek Gajowniczek, a Polish army sergeant, who survived the war and died in 1995.
He was killed by phenol injection in the starvation cell of Block 11 on 14 August 1941.
Plan your visit to the Memorial
Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau in person is the most powerful way to understand its history. We organise guided visits with licensed Memorial educators from Kraków, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna and other cities. See our tours
