Explore the Saints

108 Blessed Polish Martyrs

Today is a feast day for 108 Catholics from Poland who were killed by Nazis during World War II.

The group includes three bishops, 52 priests, 26 men and eight women from religious communities, three seminarians, and nine lay people. Pictured here (with permission from Catholic.org) is Father Bronislaw Komorowski, a priest who was killed in a concentration camp.

As a priest, Father Komorowski helped Poles resist the nationalistic influences of Germans in his home region. In 1939, he was arrested, beaten, and sent to prison. He was then transferred to a concentration camp, where he was confined to an underground cell. He was tortured and severely beaten, and was finally killed on Good Friday, 1940, along with other Polish activists.

These martyrs were beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 1999.

The 108 Blessed Polish Martyrs, you who were killed by Nazis for your Catholic faith, pray for us!