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Franciszek Dachtera (22 September 1910 – 22 August 1942) was a Polish and Roman Catholic priest. He was imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau, where he died after being tortured in medical experiments. He is one of the 108 Martyrs of World War II.
Dachtera was ordained as a priest in 1933. [1]
In August 1939 he was mobilized as a chaplain to the 62nd Wielkopolska Infantry Regiment in Bydgoszcz. During the Battle of the Bzura he was taken prisoner by the Nazis, and was a prisoner in Oflag IX C Rotenburg starting on 10 December 1939. In April 1940 he was stripped of status as a POW and taken to Buchenwald concentration camp, where he arrived on 25 April 1940, then in July 1942 he was sent to Dachau. Despite his suffering, he remained faithful and maintained a cheerful demeanor, earning the nickname Cherubnik. In December 1942 he was selected for cruel medical experiments done by war criminal Claus Schilling. He was intentionally infected with malaria and not given treatment, resulting in him suffering from jaundice, liver failure, spleen failure, and severe pain. Greatly weakened by the experiments, he died on 22 August 1944, probably from a lethal injection. His body was burned in the crematorium. [2] [3] [4] [5]
He was awarded the „Za udział w wojnie obronnej 1939” medal in 1985, Silver Cross of Merit with a rosette in 1992. There are plaques bearing his name on several churches in Poland, and a street was named after him in 2016. Two survivors of the Dachau concentration camp who knew him nominated him for the Servant of God title when the beatification process was announced, and in 1999 he became one of the 108 Blessed Polish Martyrs.
Dachau was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents, which consisted of communists, social democrats, and other dissidents. It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km (10 mi) northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. After its opening by Heinrich Himmler, its purpose was enlarged to include forced labor, and eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, German and Austrian criminals, and, finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps, which were mostly work camps or Arbeitskommandos, and were located throughout southern Germany and Austria. The main camp was liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945.
Gross-Rosen was a network of Nazi concentration camps built and operated by Nazi Germany during World War II. The main camp was located in the German village of Gross-Rosen, now the modern-day Rogoźnica in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland, directly on the rail-line between the towns of Jawor (Jauer) and Strzegom (Striegau). Its prisoners were mostly Jews, Poles and Soviet citizens.
Karl Leisner was a Roman Catholic priest interned in the Dachau concentration camp. He died of tuberculosis shortly after being liberated by the Allied forces. He has been declared a martyr and was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 23 June 1996.
SS-Totenkopfverbände was the Schutzstaffel (SS) organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps for Nazi Germany, among similar duties. While the Totenkopf was the universal cap badge of the SS, the SS-TV also wore this insignia on the right collar tab to distinguish itself from other SS formations.
Holocaust victims were people targeted by the government of Nazi Germany based on their ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, disability or sexual orientation. The institutionalized practice by the Nazis of singling out and persecuting people resulted in the Holocaust, which began with legalized social discrimination against specific groups, involuntary hospitalization, euthanasia, and forced sterilization of persons considered physically or mentally unfit for society. The vast majority of the Nazi regime's victims were Jews, Sinti-Roma peoples, and Slavs but victims also encompassed people identified as social outsiders in the Nazi worldview, such as homosexuals, and political enemies. Nazi persecution escalated during World War II and included: non-judicial incarceration, confiscation of property, forced labor, sexual slavery, death through overwork, human experimentation, undernourishment, and execution through a variety of methods. For specified groups like the Jews, genocide was the Nazis' primary goal.
The Soldau concentration camp established by Nazi Germany during World War II was a concentration camp for Polish and Jewish prisoners. It was located in Działdowo, a town in north-eastern Poland, which after the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 was annexed into the Province of East Prussia.
The 108 Martyrs of World War II, known also as the 108 Blessed Polish Martyrs, were Catholics from Poland killed during World War II by Nazi Germany.
The Martyrs of Nowogródek, also known as the Blessed Martyrs of Nowogródek, the Eleven Nuns of Nowogródek or Blessed Mary Stella and her Ten Companions, were a group of members of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, a Polish Roman Catholic religious congregation, executed by the Gestapo in August 1943 in occupied Poland. They have been declared Blessed by virtue of martyrdom by Pope John Paul II on 5 March 2000.
Salno is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Koronowo, within Bydgoszcz County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. It lies 5 kilometres (3 mi) south-west of Koronowo and 23 km (14 mi) north-west of Bydgoszcz.
Nazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on prisoners by Nazi Germany in its concentration camps mainly between 1942 and 1945. There were 15,754 documented victims, of various nationalities and age groups, although the true number is believed to be more extensive. Many survived, with a quarter of documented victims being killed. Survivors generally experienced severe permanent injuries.
During the Holocaust, death marches were massive forced transfers of prisoners from one Nazi camp to other locations, which involved walking long distances resulting in numerous deaths of weakened people. Most death marches took place toward the end of World War II, mostly after the summer/autumn of 1944. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, from Nazi camps near the Eastern Front were moved to camps inside Germany away from the Allied forces. Their purpose was to continue the use of prisoners' slave labour, to remove evidence of crimes against humanity, and to keep the prisoners to bargain with the Allies.
August Froehlich was an Upper Silesian Roman Catholic priest. In his pastoral activity he opposed National Socialism. He campaigned in the name of German Catholics and of Polish forced labourers. He died in Dachau concentration camp.
Józef Czempiel was a Polish Roman Catholic priest, activist. He was murdered in Dachau concentration camp.
The Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration incarcerated clergy who had opposed the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. From December 1940, Berlin ordered the transfer of clerical prisoners held at other camps, and Dachau became the centre for imprisonment of clergymen. Of a total of 2,720 clerics recorded as imprisoned at Dachau some 2,579 were Roman Catholics. Among the other denominations, there were 109 Protestants, 22 Orthodox, 8 Old Catholics and Mariavites and 2 Muslims. Members of the Catholic Society of Jesus (Jesuits) were the largest group among the incarcerated clergy at Dachau.
During the German Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), the Nazis brutally suppressed the Catholic Church in Poland, most severely in German-occupied areas of Poland. Thousands of churches and monasteries were systematically closed, seized or destroyed. As a result, many works of religious art and objects were permanently lost.
Antoni Świadek (1909–1945) was a Polish priest from Bydgoszcz. He died in the Dachau concentration camp and was beatified by the Catholic Church. He is one of the 108 Martyrs of World War II.
Edward Detkens (1885–1942) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest. He was imprisoned in the Nazi Sachsenhausen concentration camp and died at Dachau. He is one of the 108 Martyrs of World War II. He is buried at Powązki Cemetery.
Edward Grzymała was a Polish and Roman Catholic priest. He was imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp at Sachsenhausen. He died at the concentration camp in Dachau. In 1999, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II. He is one of the 108 Martyrs of World War II.
Matthias Spanlang was an Austrian priest, opponent of National Socialism and prisoner in Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. He was executed, probably by being crucified upside down, after baptizing a fellow inmate into the Catholic faith.
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