Page 11 - Confirmed in the Joy

[ CHAPTER TWELVE ]
The Fruit of Kindness
St. Maximilian Kolbe
Is there any greater kindness than laying down your life for another person? In the Gospel of John, Jesus states: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” ( John 15:13).
That is exactly what St. Maximilian Kolbe did in the midst of World War II.
Maximilian Kolbe was born in Poland in 1894. After struggling with health issues throughout his childhood, Maximilian entered the seminary and became a priest. Maximilian organized several religious groups or congregations including the Knights of Mary Immaculate, City of the Immaculate, and the Conventual Friars.
The Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. Because he hid a number of Jewish people from the Nazi regime, Maximilian was arrested, with other priests and religious, in February 1941 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. When three prisoners escaped, the camp commander gave orders for ten other prisoners to be starved to death to keep others from thinking of escaping too. One of the men chosen was Francis Gajowniczek, a married man with young children. Maximilian stepped in and offered to take the man’s place.
While in the death chamber Maximilian led the other
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