SVD Martyrs

Four SVD Martyrs Beatified In June 2001

On June 13, 1999 four of our Divine Word Missionaries were declared blessed (the last official step before sainthood is declared). The four are among 108 Polish martyrs of the Second World War who were beatified. The ceremony, presided over by Pope John Paul II, took place in Warsaw, Poland, and brought the total number of Divine Word Missionaries who have been declared Blessed to six - the first two were: Blessed Arnold Janssen, founder of the Society of the Divine Word; and Blessed Joseph Freinademetz, the first Divine Word Missionary to China.

 

The four who were beatified in June were all Poles murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War, and therefore are also honored as martyrs who died because of the faith they professed.

Fr. Stanislaus Kubista, SVD (Stanislaw Kubista) was born in 1889 in Kostuchna. Following ordination in 1927, he published newspapers for the Society of the Divine Word. When the German Army occupied Poland in 1939, the press was dismantled and all the papers confiscated. All the SVDs were arrested. On February 5, 1940, they were taken to the concentration camp in Gdansk. The camp had terrible sanitary conditions, the weather was cold, and the prisoners suffered from lack of food, hard work and inhuman treatment.

Two months later, the prisoners were taken in cattle trucks to a prison near Berlin. Fr. Kubista died at that camp April 26 in OrienburgSachsenhausen. An eyewitness reported that he had become very weak from an inflammation of the lungs and intestines. For three nights he lay on the floor in the wash-room where the guards threw all the prisoners who were near death. On April 26, 1940, the manager of the barracks entered the barracks. He stood near Fr. Kubista and said: "You have no reason to live." With one foot on the priest's chest and the other on his throat, he crushed the bones in his chest and throat and transferred the priest's body to the crematorium.

Bro. Gregory Frackowiak (Grzegorz Frackowiak) was born in 1911 in Lowecice. He joined the Society of the Divine Word in 1938. During the Fascist persecution, Bro. Gregory worked in a printing firm in Lowecice. In Autumn 1942, mass arrests occurred in response to distribution of anti-Nazi leaflets. Like so many others, Bro. Gregory had read the leaflets and passed them on. in the Fall of 1943, he spoke to his superiors about the arrests: "I am among those who are wanted." "Relax," the superior advised him, "there are many places in Poznan where you can hide." "I know," said Bro. Gregory, "But, Father, may I ask the arrested people to put the blame on me as manager of the press? There are fathers of families among them. Couldn't I take their place?"

The next day, Bro Gregory bade his superiors good-bye, and was arrested along with others who had read and disseminated the anti-Nazi literature. The other detainees were allowed to return to their families. On May 5, 1943 Bro. Gregory was beheaded at the camp in Dresden.

Fr. Aloysius Liguda was born in 1898 near Opole. He was ordained in 1927. In 1930 he entered the University of Poznan and earned a Master's Degree in Polish Philology. He wrote three books and continued to teach then was appointed rector of the SVD community in Gorna Grupa. When the Nazis arrived in 1939, the house was turned into an interment camp for priests and seminarians. On February 5, 1940 the internees were taken to a camp in Gdansk, then to Dachau. As a prisoner who spoke German, Fr. Liguda became the interpreter for the other internees, saving them from many embarrassments. On one occasion he wrote: "People may treat me as something base, but cannot make me base, Dachau can rob me of all my rights and titles; the privilege of being a son of God no one can take from me."

In 1942, when Fr. Liguda had grown weak in Dachau, one day guards transported him with the invalids from his block to the water reservoir near the camp where the prisoners were all drowned. He had said as he left his cell: "If I Fr. Aloysius lose my life, you will know full Liguda well that they have murdered a healthy man." The official report was that he and the other prisoners had died, of pneumonia.

Fr. Louis Mzyk, born in 1905 in Chorzaw, Poland, was ordained in 1932. After completing his doctorate in theology in Rome, he was appointed Director of Novices in Chludowo, near Poznan as German forces occupied Poland. In January, 1940 he was arrested after talking to an undercover Gestapo agent about making plans to get the novices out of Poland to Austria or Rome. He was taken to prison in Poznan, where nine priests were kept in a room about 25 feet square with part of the floor covered with chopped straw. SS guards taunted them constantly and made sport of torturing them in front of visitors. Fr. Mzyk responded with courage, and, along with two other priests, was beaten and shot by the SS camp director at point blank range. Their bodies were thrown out into the snow.

Source: www.svd-ca.com