Day 3: Encountering Two Prisoners of Auschwitz

Saturday morning, March 9

            Goooood morning!  I had a dream last night that the Polish currency exchange rate also applied to time.  The exchange rate is about four zloty to one euro.  So, when I woke up at 5am this morning, I thought, “Oh, I don’t have to be up until 6am, but since we’re in Poland, I have more time, four minutes for every minute.”  Hahaha.  I didn’t realize how ridiculous this was until I got up at 5:45am and found that only 15 minutes passed before it was 6am.  Heehee…

            It’s quiet, peaceful, early in the morning, and snowing outside.  I’m sitting by a window, writing.  I feel so blessed, what a beautiful gift!

            Now, getting back to yesterday, Friday.  Thanks to our nice stranger friend at the train station, we made it onto the correct train and to Niepokalanow.  Meanwhile, it had started snowing!  We made the pilgrimage to Niepokalanow because that’s where St. Maximillian Kolbe lived most of his religious life and where he was arrested.  The town there actually came to be because of him.  It was built around the chapel and house for the religious borthers that St. Maximillian built there.

Niepokalanow

            St. Maximillian Kolbe was a Franciscan friar of the Immaculate.  He joined the brothers when he was only 19 years old.  The man was brilliant (he had his first doctoral degree at age 21!).  During WWII, he was arrested and taken to Auschwitz.  When one of the men in his block escaped, the Nazis chose ten men to sentence to death in the starvation bunker.  One of the men chosen began desperately pleading for his life because he had a wife and children.  St. Maximillian stepped forward and offered to take his place.  The Nazis, astonished, accepted the switch.  Fr. Maximillian lived fourteen days in the starvation bunker, all the while praying and singing, comforting and encouraging those dying with him.  At the end of fourteen days, he was killed by lethal injection.

We went through a museum where we learned about Fr. Maximillian’s entire life.  Most people only know of his final heroic act, but his whole live was lived with the same virtue.  We saw some of St. Maximillian’s personal belongings, his bed and desk, the room he was arrested in, and the blue and white striped pajamas he wore in the concentration camp.  We ended our pilgrimage there by praying a rosary in the chapel, the first building in Niepokalanow, built by Maximillian and his religious brothers.

St. Maximilian's bed 

St. Maximilian's desk             

The striped pajamas St. Maximilian wore in Auschwitz

            We hopped on the train again and headed back to our host family for dinner.  Their daughter met us at the train station, took us to Mass, then to her house.  She had just returned that day from studying abroad in Italy!  Did I mention how incredible Polish hospitality is?!  Speaking of which, dinner was great!  We had pierogis.  They were so good, and so Polish!  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat the “pierogis” in the states again without passing great judgment on them.

            After dinner, we went to a talk given by Wanda Półtawska.  She was one of Blessed Pope John Paul II’s best friends!  She would go hiking in the mountains with him and he would go on family vacations with her family and another family.  She was with John Paul II as he was dying and would read to him everyday, usually from Polish literature and poetry.  This woman, who is 92 years old, survived Auschwitz and two rounds of cancer.  She spoke a lot about John Paul II’s theology of the body and how he would often have meetings with troubled couples and teach them about the beauty of theology of the body and how that would solve their problems.  She didn’t talk to much about her personal relationship with Blessed John Paul II, but she wrote a book, I’m Afraid of My Dreams, about her struggles coming from a concentration camp.  I think there is more about her personal friendship with John Paul II in it.

            Exhausted, we returned to our respective host families…where they fed us MORE!  I stayed up until around 11:30pm, talking with the couple’s fourteen-year-old son.  He told me about Poland, his school, things he does for fun.  Even this fourteen-year-old boy was so kind and hospitable!  He was patient with me when I didn’t understand his English and so humble in his willingness to converse with me even though his English wasn’t perfect.

            Ok, this post has gotten super long, must stop!  Time for breakfast, then off to…