St. Maximilian Kolbe

Window is RESERVED
St. Maximilian Kolbe Stained Glass Window in the Newman Center

About the Window

Represented with in his prison garments, shaved and the hat assigned to Polish prisoners. The background represents the concentration camp where he was taken.

Biography 

Devoted entirely to the Immaculate Conception, he fund­ed a city on her name (Niepokalanów), and was a precursor of Catholic media.
When young, The Immaculate Conception appeared to him and show him two crowns, one for purity (white) and one for sacrifice (red) and he choose both.

On February 17, 1941, Father Maximilian was arrested by the Nazis for a second time. Only hours before the Gestapo arrived, he completed his final and most comprehensive, theological essay on the Virgin Mary’s identity as one who is perfectly united to the Holy Spirit by a bond of love.

While in the concentration camp, Father Maximilian would translate his theological and spiritual insights into practical words and actions for his fellow inmates, by tangi­bly showing that there is God, and therefore, love and hope exist even in the midst of horrific genocide in the camps of Auschwitz.

In July of 1941, it was reported to the deputy camp com­mander that a prisoner from St. Maximilian’s barracks had escaped. In order to set an example, and to prevent further escapes, the standard procedure was to have the command­er of the barracks single out ten men for the starvation bunker. Father Maximilian, although not among the ten first selected, volunteered, in a heroic act of charity, to be the victim in place of a prisoner who cried out: “My poor wife; my poor children!” The result of this self-offering was that Father Maximilian would be assigned to the infamous starvation bunker where he would slowly but surely die. At this precise moment, the victim Saint attained full con­formity to the Victim of the Cross; for there is “no greater love than this, that a man lays down his life for his friend” (Jn 15:12).

Franciszek Gajowniczek (15 November 1901 – 13 March 1995)was a Polish army sergeant whose life was saved at Auschwitz by priest Maximilian Kolbe, who volunteered to die in his place. Gajowniczek had been sent to Auschwitz concentration camp from a Gestapo prison in Tarnów.

He often said: “so long as he ... has breath in his lungs, he would consider it his duty to tell people about the heroic act of love by Maximilian Kolbe.” Gajowniczek died in the city of Brzeg on 13 March 1995 at the age of 93. He was buried at a convent cemetery in Niepokalanów, 53 years after having his life saved by Kolbe.

The German guard at his feel with the needle represents the guard that entered the room to find 13 of the prisoners dead and had to inject Maximillian with a lethal injection of carbolic acid. He is not showing his face and is not facing the altar.