Father Maximilian Kolbe, who died today in 1941, was a Polish priest who perished in Auschwitz.
He's remembered as a saint and martyr because he volunteered to die in the place of another prisoner.
After Poland was overrun by the Germans, Kolbe helped run a publishing house at his monastery that issued several anti-Nazi publications. The monastery also sheltered refugees including 2000 Jews, whom he hid from the Germans.
He and four others were arrested on February 17, 1941, and taken to Auschwitz in May.
In the camp Kolbe suffered violent abuse, including lashings and beatings.
After the escape of three men in July, the camp commander, Karl Fritzsch, selected 10 men to be starved to death in retaliation. One of them, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out 'My wife! My children!' whereupon Kolbe volunteered to take his place. According to an eye-witness account, he spent his time standing or kneeling in prayer. After two weeks he was the only one to remain alive and was given a lethal injection of carbolic acid in his arm to finish him. His body was cremated the following day.
Kolbe was canonized as saint by Pope John Paul II in 1982. This recognition was not uncontroversial; he has been accused of printing articles with antisemitic themes and is not recognised by Israel as one of the 'Righteous among the Nations'. However, most Holocaust scholars do not agree that he was an antisemite.
