Today, April 29, the National Day of the Martyrdom of the Polish Clergy is observed on the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp.
The chairman of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, recalled that the Dachau concentration camp was a special place of martyrdom of the Polish clergy. He emphasized that Polish priests in Dachau were treated worse than other clergymen, e.g. German clergy. They were forbidden to celebrate Holy Mass and services.
The President of the Episcopate emphasized that Dachau is a particularly important place for the modern clergy because there priests can learn the fortitude and sacrifice that the clergy had at that time. “Therefore, today, when there are no such circumstances, when we enjoy freedom, it is worthwhile for priests who sometimes treat their vocation lightly and give up on it for any reason, see what the true priesthood is,” he emphasized.
Established by the Episcopate in 2002, the Martyrdom of the Polish Clergy aims to commemorate priests who were victims of totalitarian systems, especially Nazism and communism. The celebration in Kalisz is a continuation of the annual thanksgiving of priests – prisoners of Dachau for the liberation of the camp on April 29, 1945. Fearing the liquidation of the camp, they entrusted themselves to St. Joseph and vowed that if they survived, they would make pilgrimages to St. Józef in Kalisz. The camp was liberated on April 29, 1945. The saved priests from Poland fulfilled their pledge until the end of their lives and made pilgrimages to Kalisz, thanking them for saving them. The last of them, Fr. Leon Stępniak, died in 2013.
Dachau was the main camp for Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox clergy. Among approximately 3,000 imprisoned monks, deacons, priests, and Catholic bishops, 1773 came from Poland; 868 clergymen were martyred in the camp, most of them from the dioceses of Poznań (147), Włocławek (144) and Łódź (112). Of the nearly 600 religious, the largest group of victims were Jesuits, missionaries, and Salesians.
On April 29, 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the German concentration camp in Dachau, bishops and priests from all over Poland made pilgrimages to this place.
