The 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a place more synonymous with depravity than probably any other corner of the earth, was marked in January.<\/p>\n
Amid the horrors of World War II, there were sunbeams of Christian heroism.<\/p>\n
One few have heard of is the Polish Jesuit martyr Father Adam Sztark (1907\u20131942), who used his wits and mastery of disguise to perform spiritual and corporal acts of mercy despite the persistent threat of death.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 1, 1939, World War II broke out as Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, with the Soviet Union attacking from the east on Sept. 17. Both Hitler and Stalin wanted to destroy the Polish Church, and according to the research of Father Felicjan Paluszkiewicz, SJ, 83 Polish Jesuits \u2014 11% of the Jesuits in the country \u2014 were murdered by the Germans and Soviets between 1939 and 1945.<\/p>\n
In 1939, Sztark became the chaplain of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in S\u0142onim (present-day Belarus) and custodian of the Marian shrine in nearby \u017byrowice.<\/p>\n
After the Red Army invaded the city, the Soviets spread atheistic propaganda and tried to isolate priests from the people. Yet Sztark traveled tens of miles on his bicycle to bring consolation to hospital patients incognito as an elderly man visiting his ailing daughter or to nursing homes pretending to be a Jewish visitor.<\/p>\n
In 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Although the Soviets\u2019 injustices against Poland were a fresh wound, Sztark passed food and cigarettes to Russian officers in POW camps through barbed wire. He also cycled to the vicinity of Minsk to catechize Poles and offer them the sacrament of penance; many had not seen a priest since the Bolshevik Revolution.<\/p>\n
As S\u0142onim fell under Nazi German occupation, local Jews were shot by the \u201cEinsatzgruppen\u201d (mobile SS killing units); the survivors were confined to a ghetto. Unlike in Western Europe, the punishment for aiding Jews in occupied Poland was death, but this was no deterrent to Sztark.<\/p>\n The priest had an unusual asset: Despite not being Jewish himself, he had a \u201cSemitic\u201d appearance. This allowed him to move freely in the S\u0142onim Ghetto, where he gave food to starving people and from which he smuggled Jewish children, who were later hidden in convents and orphanages or placed with Christian families.<\/p>\n Escaping the ghetto\u2019s perimeter, however, could have resulted in death, which he once narrowly avoided by jumping from the second story of a building after being pursued by German soldiers.<\/p>\n Sztark also gave Jews backdated baptismal certificates and baptized Jews. In December 1942, this Jesuit scarlet pimpernel snuck into the S\u0142onim prison dressed as a Polish policeman. Hours before a group of inmates \u2014 Poles, Jews, and Soviet partisans \u2014 was executed, he consoled them and offered them the sacraments of penance and baptism.<\/p>\n Because of the dangers of this activity, the local underground offered to safely transport the priest to the General Government in occupied central Poland. Yet Sztark declined, saying that \u201ca good shepherd does not abandon his sheep but gives his soul for them.\u201d When a Belarusian informed Sztark that Belarusian collaborators had sentenced him to death, he likewise declined to escape.<\/p>\n On Dec. 18, Sztark and two Polish nuns, Sisters Ewa Noiszewska and Marta Wo\u0142owska \u2014 both beatified by St. John Paul II in 1999 \u2014 were arrested. They were escorted to the Gestapo headquarters and briefly imprisoned.\u00a0 <\/p>\n The next morning, they were brought by truck to Pietralewicka Hill to be shot.<\/p>\n In the final hours of his life, Sztark likewise baptized and heard the confessions of fellow inmates. <\/p>\n Used to seeing condemned prisoners panicking and screaming, the Nazi German hangmen were surprised that those awaiting their death were calm. Suspecting that this soothing effect was the work of the priest\u2019s consolation, they offered to spare him, yet once more Sztark declined. <\/p>\n Echoing fellow Jesuit martyr Blessed Miguel Pro of Mexico, Sztark\u2019s last words were: \u201cLong live Christ the King! Long live Poland!\u201d After the execution, a Belarusian took off his cassock, which was cut into pieces that many locals treated as relics.<\/p>\n