Saint Maksymilian Maria Kolbe, original name Rajmund Kolbe (born Jan. 8, 1894, Zduńska Wola, near Lodz, Russian Empire [now in Poland]—died Aug. 14, 1941, Auschwitz [now Oświęcim]; feast day August 14; canonized Oct. 10, 1982), Franciscan priest and religious founder martyred by the Nazis for aiding Jewish refugees during World War II.
Kolbe joined the Franciscan Conventuals in 1907 and in 1912 went to Rome, where he studied theology and philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University. In 1917 he founded the sodality (i.e., devotional association) of the Militia of Mary Immaculate, thus making a significant contribution to the international Marian movement. In 1918 he was ordained priest. Returning to Poland, he established the popular Roman Catholic periodical Rycerz Niepokalanej (“The Knight of Mary Immaculate”) and in 1927 founded the City of Mary Immaculate (Niepokalanów), a religious centre, that eventually attracted some 700 friars and workers. A fervent advocate of devotion to the Virgin Mary’s cult, he later founded sister institutions in Japan and India.
Kolbe became superior of the City of Mary Immaculate and director of Poland’s chief Catholic publishing complex. For his anti-Nazism he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1939; released, he was again arrested in February 1941 on charges of aiding Jews and the Polish underground. He was imprisoned at Warsaw and then shipped to Auschwitz, where he volunteered his life in the place of the condemned inmate Franciszek Gajowniczek. First starved, he was finally injected with phenol and cremated.
On Oct. 17, 1971, Kolbe was beatified by Pope Paul VI, the first Nazi victim to be proclaimed blessed by the Roman Catholic church. In 1982 Pope John Paul II canonized him, proclaiming also that he was to be venerated as a martyr.