Kolbe as Witness, by Michael Pakaluk

How can it be that, simply from viewing a picture of someone, you can form a conviction that he is a saint? The conviction appears to be a mere intuition, but later you discover that it is well-grounded.  So it was for me and Maximilian Kolbe.   Before he was famous, upon seeing his picture in a parish newspaper – the familiar one, where he has his long beard and is in his habit – a heartfelt conviction arose in me that I should follow this man, because he was one of the “holy ones.”  And so I did follow him, and learned about his remarkable death and extraordinary life.

You probably know the basic facts of his death.  Like other religious in Poland, he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz.  There, a prisoner escaped, and the concentration camp guards, following their usual mode of reprisal, were going to put ten innocent prisoners to death, through starvation in the notorious torture box, the “Hunger Bunker.”  One unfortunate man, when he was picked out of the lineup, shouted out, “My wife, my children!” ….

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