The Volunteer of Cell 18

In July 1941, a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz. As punishment, the SS selected ten men from Block 14 to die by starvation. When Sergeant Karl Fritzsch pointed to Franciszek Gajowniczek, the Polish soldier crumpled, crying out for his wife and children.

Then a small, bespectacled priest stepped out of line. Father Maximilian Kolbe, prisoner 16670, said quietly, "I wish to die in place of this man."

The guards were stunned. No one volunteered for the starvation bunker. But Kolbe walked calmly into Cell 18, where for two weeks he led the condemned men in hymns and prayers as they slowly perished. When the guards came to finish what starvation had not, they found Kolbe sitting upright against the wall, his face peaceful. He extended his arm for the lethal injection.

Gajowniczek survived the war. He lived another fifty-three years, and every anniversary he returned to Auschwitz to lay flowers at Cell 18.