Maximilian Kolbe

Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Catholic priest who was arrested and taken to Auschwitz, one of the Nazi death camps, in 1941. Auschwitz was a living hell thousands of people died every day from beatings, torture, disease, starvation or in the gas chambers. Priests were especially ill-treated and on one occasion Father Kolbe was stripped naked and whipped fifty times.

One day the guards picked out a man to be tortured to death. Father Kolbe stood and said, 'Take me instead'. He was stripped and thrown into a stinking hole and starved to death. His heroism echoed through the camp. In 1982 he was made a saint.

He once said, 'My aim in life is to serve others'.

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