Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka was a Franciscan nun condemned to death under the Nazis for her opposition to the regime.

Blessed Maria was born in 1894 in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was baptized Helena. Helena’s father was a shoemaker. When she was very young, Helena’s family moved to Vienna, the capital, and she grew up in the bustling city.

As a young woman, at the exciting turn of the twentieth century, Helena found work in Vienna first as a salesclerk, and then as a nurse. While working as a nurse in the hospital, she came into contact with the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity. Despite being surrounded by the glamor and comforts of city life as a young woman, Maria was attracted to these religious sisters’ simple and self-giving way of life. Helena joined their community at the age of 20, taking the name Maria Restituta after an early Christian martyr.

As the brightness of the new century faded into the horror of war, Maria continued to serve as a nurse in the hospital during World War I. Eventually, through her skill and dedication, Maria became the head surgical nurse at her hospital. When the nationalist-socialist regime came to power, in the inter-war years of the 1930’s, Maria Restituta was not afraid to speak out against it. When the hospital built a new wing, Maria placed a crucifix inside every room. The Nazi government demanded that she remove the crucifixes, but Maria refused. Clearly, a principled, stubborn woman was going to be an obstacle, so the Nazis made up their minds to remove her. The Nazis wanted to arrest her but were prevented from doing so immediately because Maria was so indispensable to the hospital.

A doctor who supported the Nazis eventually betrayed Maria and handed her over to them on a trumped-up false charge. In 1942, as Maria was coming out of an operation, she was arrested by the Nazi police and sentenced to death for treason. Maria was given the choice to renounce her religious community and thus to spare her life. She declined.

During more than a year in prison, she cared for other prisoners. In one of her letters from that time, she wrote, “It does not matter how far we are separated from everything, no matter what is taken from us: the faith that we carry in our hearts is something no one can take from us. In this way, we build an altar in our own hearts.”

The Nazis beheaded Maria on March 30, 1943—she was only 48.

Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka, staunch in the face of Nazi occupation and a culture of death—pray for us!