History has always been an interest of mine, specifically World
War II while I was growing up. I don’t know what it was about the war that
really intrigued me, maybe it was simply the idea that one person could be the
mastermind behind so much destruction and hatred. It was not until later in high
school that I actually began looking into the war seriously. As a result I
began discovering many ties from the atrocities of the war that still haunt our
world today, such as the euthanasia, and experimentations on those deemed unfit
to carry on a life of their own. This whole scientific part of the war was news
to me, my initial understanding was that it was an attempt to wipe out the Jews
– it was a war focused on abolishing a religion…. Little did I know that it was
a war with many layers and somewhere along the lines Catholics were targeted.
If you haven’t already read it I recommend Priestblock 25487 – by Father Jean
Bernard. It is his personal memoir of the horrors that took place within the
Dachau concentration camp. It was an intense read, there were points where I
couldn’t help but comfort myself with the thought that this was historical
fiction, written in first person, like many other war stories I have read. In
reality however, everything within the book actually occurred, and was
experienced by the author, a Catholic priest. I think my shrugging it off into
the genre of historical fiction was my way of coping; I had trouble accepting
the fact that some of these events actually took place.
The way the prisoners were treated was rather mindboggling
to me. Yes, I knew there were horrible things that happened in the concentration
camps but sometimes their everyday life… I don’t know how they put up with
everything. There was very little space; the camp was designed to hold 6,000 prisoners,
and by 1944 the camp actually held 30,000 people as prisoners.[1]
Fr. Bernard writes of the close quarters, sharing beds with at least one, as well
as not having enough mattresses for everyone to use resulting in people
sleeping between the pushed together beds or on the bed-slats (on which the
mattress would typically rest), and having the entire residency of three of the
barrack buildings moved into the few others that remained in the priestblock
that were already brimming with people. They did this to make room for a group
of about 300 Russians, who were only there for about six weeks and then never
seen again.[2]
Throughout these difficult times the priests were assigned
to work that included carrying the soup pails from the kitchen to the different
barracks, shoveling snow (even if it was only a light dusting and the sun was
going to melt it quickly), carrying it from where it had fallen to the edge of
the camp and sometimes only placing it down when given permission by the SS officer
watching.[3]
The priests specifically came to work in different storage places, or fields,
it was a lot of manual labor, that was made difficult by their poor diets as well
as their insufficient wardrobe.
Dachau was the first concentration camp. It was not a death
camp because there was no gas chamber until 1942, and after the chamber was
built it was never put to any kind of use.[4]
The camp is known for several things, including its insane forced labor
program, with the saying above the gate that translates to “Work sets you free”[5]
as well as it being considered a “model concentration camp, a place where S.S.
guards and other camp officials went to train.”[6]
Father Bernard writes of a time when the camp received visitors, almost as
though they were inspecting the camp. He explains that there was a specific protocol
which the camp underwent so that people would believe Dachau to be a humane
place, this included a specific building being kept up better than the others,
and a handful of better fed prisoners wandering around, while the workers, and
the remaining prisoners either remained in their barracks or outside of the
gates until the guests left.[7]
 |
| The Sign above the Gate "Work sets you free." |
The manipulation that went into maintaining such an inhumane
place surprised me. The fact that anywhere could actually reach such a level of
inhumanity really astounds me. The tasks that the prisoners were assigned ended
up being games for the officers of the camp to feel as though they had some
kind of power. They made the prisoners their puppets, while in reality they,
the officers, were the puppets of the Third Reich, with their strings being
pulled by Hitler. We cannot actually look at this situation and come to the
conclusion that there was not some greater evil taking control during this war.
Despite the evil that took place, God still got the last word, as He always
does, and at least two priests from Dachau were beatified by Saint John Paul
II.[8]
The first of these men was Father Titus Brandsma.
 |
| Father Titus Brandsma |
Father Brandsma, a priest in the Carmelite order, was a
professor in the Netherlands. He spoke out against Hitler and the Nazi party
from the beginning, and quickly became a target. As the war moved farther along
and the media, i.e. the newspaper articles, became more censored. Father
Brandsma was asked by the bishop to assist the Dutch Catholic Journalists with
identifying what was or was not appropriate in being cut from the papers from a
Catholic perspective. He traveled from city to city, while being followed by
the military, visiting the editors and before he would leave he would remind
them -
“We have reached our limit. We cannot serve them. It will be our duty to refuse Nazi propaganda definitely if we wish to remain Catholic newspapers. Even if they threaten us with severe penalties, suspension or discontinuance of our newspapers, we cannot conform with their orders.”[9]
It was not long before the Nazis figured out what Father
Brandsma was doing, and he was quickly arrested in January of 1942. He was sent
to two different camps before finally finding himself at Dachau, where he was told
he would remain until the end of the war. He was sent to the priestblock, where
he participated in work, like that described by Father Bernard and he quickly
fell ill. Upon entering the infirmary medical experimentation began and on July
26th, 1942 he was injected with lethal drug and quickly died.[10]
The second priest who came to be beatified by Saint John
Paul II was actually the Polish Bishop that Father Bernard wrote about, Bishop
Cozal[11]
(Kozal – depending on the translation). On June 12, 1939, Father Cozal was made
Auxiliary bishop of Wloclawek by Pope Pius XII, he was consecrated
on August 13, 1939, and on September 1, 1939 the Nazis invaded Poland. Rather
than leave Poland and head to safety the Bishop chose to stay with his people
and on November 7, he was arrested by the Nazis and was held in Wloclawek's city prison. After being transferred to two different prisons and a failed attempt by the Vatican to rescue the Bishop, he was sent to Dachau in April of 1941. He lived in the priestblock where he took part in the forced labor, and was given the opportunity to offer the sacrifice of the mass "to celebrate his twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination."[12] It was not until January of 1943 that Bishop Cozal was injected with a lethal substance and after death incinerated.[13]
 |
| Bishop Cozal |
Despite the evils and the horrors experienced
within the camp two men came to find themselves on the path toward sainthood.
It is known for a fact that both Blesseds were at Dachau while Father Bernard
was there. We only know however that Father Bernard interacted with Bishop
Cozal, as he mentions him by name in his memoir; it is not known whether he
ever knew Father Brandsma, though they were at the camp at the same time, and
quite possibly at the infirmary simultaneously.
The fact that even in the darkest of times, even in
a camp filled with torture, pain, and death, men like Blessed Bishop Cozal,
Blessed Father Brandsma, and Father Bernard could lead others to see Christ is
incredibly amazing. It should cause us to remember that despite our sufferings,
and our difficulties things could be so much worse. I am not saying that our
problems are irrelevant and unimportant; I am merely saying that the stories of
these three men should allow us to call to mind a kind of clarity of
perspective. Despite our struggles, if they, three men over worked, underfed,
poorly clothed, and tortured, could keep their faith, we have no excuse, and I
know for me, sometimes I need that reminder desperately.
The long and short of it comes down to this – Yes,
world war II was filled with many horrors, and many deaths, but outside of all
of the pain and the suffering one can find God waiting to comfort, and that is
a beautiful thing. If you ever get the opportunity to read Father Bernard’s Priestblock 25487, do so. You will not
regret it. It is one of the most interesting books I have read in a while, and
the fact that he experienced so much, but held fast to his faith is just amazing.
It is one of those books that you just have to read for yourself.
Resources –
Gloss, Jennifer L. “Dachau.”
Accessed October 15, 2014.http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930s/a/Dachau.htm.
History.com Staff. “Dachau.”
History.com. 2009. Accessed October 15, 2014.http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/dachau.
Bernard, Jean. Priestblock
25487: A Memoir of Dachau.
Bethesda, Md.: Zaccheus Press, ©2007.
“Titus Brandsma 1881 - 1942.”
Accessed October 17, 2014.http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/TITUSLIF.htm.
“Blessed Michal Kozal.” Accessed October 17,
2014. http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=7534
[1] History.com Staff, “Dachau,” History.com, 2009, accessed
October 15, 2014, http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/dachau.
[4] Jennifer L. Gloss, “Dachau,”, accessed October 15, 2014,http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930s/a/Dachau.htm.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Jean Bernard, Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau (Bethesda,
Md.: Zaccheus Press, ©2007), 132
– 134.
[8] History.com Staff, “Dachau,” History.com, 2009, accessed
October 15, 2014, http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/dachau.
[9] “Titus Brandsma 1881 - 1942,”, accessed October 17, 2014,http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/TITUSLIF.htm.
[10] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] “Blessed Michal Kozal,”, accessed October 17, 2014, http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=7534.
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