The Volunteer of Cell 18

In late July 1941, a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland. Deputy commandant Karl Fritzsch retaliated by selecting ten men from Block 14 to die by starvation. When Franciszek Gajowniczek heard his number called, he broke ranks and wept aloud for his wife and children. From the rows of emaciated prisoners, a small, bespectacled Franciscan friar stepped forward. "I am a Catholic priest," said Father Maximilian Kolbe, prisoner #16670. "I wish to die for that man."

Fritzsch accepted the exchange. Kolbe was locked in the underground starvation bunker of Block 11, Cell 18, where he led the condemned men in hymns and prayer as they slowly perished. After two weeks, Kolbe remained alive. On August 14, 1941, a camp executioner ended his life with an injection of carbolic acid. Gajowniczek survived the war and lived to the age of ninety-three.

Paul wrote to the Romans, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Kolbe did not ask whether Gajowniczek deserved rescue. He simply stepped forward. That is the shape of divine love — not a love that waits for worthiness, but one that volunteers before it is asked. The cross was God's step forward out of the ranks, into our place, for our sake.