Who Would Dare Suppose?

Content warning: WWII concentration camp setting

The light of the sun is fading, much like the strength of the prisoners in striped trousers, shirts, and caps. Since the morning roll call, they have stood at attention as the July sun blazed down on them. Movement, even to sit, would be rewarded with the crack of a gun and the thud of a falling body. Many collapsed anyways from dehydration, starvation, and fatigue. Though beaten and kicked, they were unable to rise, and were dragged to the back of the standing ranks to be piled on top of one another. Revived by a small meal of soup earlier in the afternoon, they are still weak. 

Evening roll call has been taken in Auschwitz, and now Colonel Fritsch, the second in command of the camp, approaches the miserable prisoners of Block 14. Yesterday, one of their number did not return with the work gang. The escapee has not been caught. As punishment, the colonel declared that ten prisoners will die in the starvation bunker.

Lukas Krause, one of the armed S.S. guards attending the colonel, watches as the prisoners are ordered into ten rows of sixty prisoners each. One will be taken from each row, and it will be his and his fellow soldiers’ responsibility to attend to them as they are selected. 

Colonel Fritsch paces up and down the length of the front row. All is silent. All is still.

He points at one of the prisoners.

Palitsch, the recording officer, writes down the number emblazoned on the cloth badge. One of Lukas’s fellows seizes the prisoner and drags him a few paces away, eddies of fine black ash raised by the feet scuffling on the hard-packed dirt. Palitsch barks, “Five steps forward, march.” The front row does so, opening an avenue for the colonel to examine the second row. 

The selection continues. Able to understand Polish, Lukas listens as the selected cry out defiance in their native tongue, some giving farewells to friends, others declaring that they are dying for the glory of the country of Poland, which will never be defeated. Of course, they are wrong. The ruling years of the Third Reich are approaching and will truly begin once the war is won. That is what has been promised by the Führer.

The colonel is pointing at another. The recorder writes his number. In Polish, the selected one says, “Oh… my wife… my poor children… I will never see them again.” Tears leave this one’s eyes and travel down his hollow cheeks, the last of the fading sunlight turning the droplets to liquid gold.

Lukas translates the crying prisoner’s words to Colonel Fritsch, but the colonel gives no indication of having heard him.

Another prisoner in the same row steps forward without being called. The infringement of protocol so stuns everyone, including Lukas, that for a moment, all simply inhale and stare. He hears the rest of the stripe-clad prisoners whispering and murmuring in Polish, “Who is it?” and others answering, “It’s Father Kolbe.” Some exclaim in hisses, “What, the Franciscan?” 

Rousing himself, Colonel Fritsch reaches for his pistol and half-fearful forces out, “Halt! What do you want?”

The prisoner who has broken rank is short, emaciated as they all are, wearing round wire-rimmed glasses held together with bits of string. Those glasses. Lukas recognizes those glasses. He heard a story from a fellow guard: Two work gangs were out farming, and a capo—a prisoner set over the others—was beating someone during a break. The prisoner being beaten was down on his hands and knees. A prisoner from the other gang came up to the two officers and informed them that he was a boxer, and asked if he could “train” with the capo who was beating the other prisoner. Both officers gave the boxer permission to go ahead. The boxer had gone and spoken to the capo, and then punched him twice, knocking the capo to the ground beside his victim. The other prisoner, who was wearing glasses, had immediately stood up and said, “Don’t beat your brother, my son!” The boxer had told him to “Bug off!” and hit the capo a third time. But the bespectacled prisoner fell to his knees and grasped the boxer’s hands, saying, “Do not fight, my son.” This must be the same one. 

Taking the cap from his head and holding it in his hand, the little prisoner’s eyes peer up at Fritsch. No fear or contempt are in those wide-open eyes, but they contain a light which Lukas has not seen in a long while. Very softly the prisoner says in Polish, “Please, Herr Commandant, I would like to take the place of that man.” And he points at the crying one.

Flustered, completely ignorant of the language being spoken to him, the commandant turns to his recorder. “Who is this man? What is it all about?” 

The tranquil little prisoner speaks again, but now in fluent German: “I am a Catholic priest and I want to take his place. He has a wife and family.” 

“Are you crazy?” Colonel Fritsch demands. 

“I would like to die in his place,” the little bespectacled prisoner continues in German. “I am old, and sick… I can barely work. I am of no use to anyone anymore. This man is young and strong, and he has a wife and family… I have no one…” The prisoner is certainly right about being of no use. Lukas is surprised that this one is still standing, and not unconscious on the ground.

The commandant drops his eyes from that open, sincere gaze, then turns to his recorder. His voice rings out. “ACCEPTED.” 

The crying prisoner covers his face as Lukas pushes him back into line and grabs the Catholic priest. The previous number is scratched out by Palitsch, and the little bespectacled prisoner’s number is substituted.

5659

16670

The rest of the selections are made, and the prisoners not selected are sent off to their barracks. The replaced prisoner is still crying, and Lukas hears one of the others say to him, “Take hold of yourself! Is that priest to die for nothing?” 

Palitsch orders the condemned to remove their shoes, and Lukas and his fellow guards escort the ten prisoners to the starvation bunker. 16670 holds up another prisoner at the rear. When they reach the dank cement building, the S.S. men strip the prisoners and march them down the hall. They are forced into a cell that is not even large enough to allow all of them to lie down at once. “You will dry up like tulips,” one soldier says before slamming the metal door. 

Outside, the sunset is spectacular. 

Marching down the cold cement halls the next day, the guards are accompanied by the Polish prisoner conscripted to remove the bodies of the deceased. Where formerly the moans of the dying chased one another through the gloom, the walls now echo with song. When they heave open the door of the cell filled with the prisoners from Block 14, the song rolls out. Ave, ave, ave Maria!

The days pass, and the guards say to one another, “Never have we seen anything like this.” No more moaning, instead, all the prisoners in the various cells sing and chant prayers to one another. When they enter the cell where the Block 14 prisoners are, the naked inmates often do not seem to see the soldiers. When the priest lifts his eyes, the S.S. men grow uncomfortable, reprimanding, “Turn your eyes away. Do not look at us that way!” 

Lukas furrows his brow and speaks for his fellows as he says, “We have never seen a man like this.” 

Two weeks later, Lukas heaves the door open again. Four of the prisoners from Block 14 are still alive, though only one is conscious: 16670 slumped in a corner. More prisoners have been condemned to starvation. This cell must be cleared at once. Boch, head of the sick quarters, is on his way to administer injections of carbolic acid.

As the syringe approaches, lips moving in prayer, 16670 lifts up his trembling arm to Boch.

The accompanying Polish prisoner assigned to remove the bodies turns and flees the room. Lukas decides he will not summon that one back for a minute or two. It will not take longer for this man to die.

Author's note: All dialogue in quotation marks was taken from the book Kolbe: Saint of the Immaculata edited by Br. Francis M. Kalvelage, FI for purposes of historical accuracy.

Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek (prisoner number 5659), survived the concentration camp. After Father Kolbe's sacrifice, many other prisoners helped Francis, determined that the priest's gift would not be thwarted. Francis Gajowniczek was present at Father Maximilian Kolbe's canonization by Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1982. On that day Francis said, "For years I suffered great doubts over the part I played in contributing to Fr. Kolbe's death. This great day has put an end to my doubts forever. Today is the happiest day of my life."