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John_TE
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According to the best estimate some 2,771 clergyman were inmates in Dachau. The largest number of clergyman were Catholic priests, seminarians, and lay brothers. A disproportionate number were the 1,780 Polish clergy, 780 of whom died in Dachau. Three thousand additional Polish priests were sent to other concentration camps. In addition, 780 priests died at Mauthausen, 300 at Sachsenhausen and 5,000 in Buchenwald. With the Nazi conquest of Western Europe, hundreds of priests were shot or shipped to concentration camps, many dying en route. Also many nuns were either imprisoned or shot.
Giovanni Palatucci, a deeply religious young police officer, helped to save an estimated 5,000 Jewish refugees by destroying index files, and securing false identity papers. He arranged for their transportation to southern Italy where his uncles Giuseppe Palatucci, the Bishop of Compagna, and Alfonso Palatucci, the Provincial of the Franciscan Order in Puglia, had established safe havens. He was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Dachau. On February 10, 1945, ten weeks before the liberation of Dachau, the deeply religious 36 year old died. Fritz Michael Gerlich director of the Catholic newspaper Der Gerade Weg (The Narrow Way) was arrested and sent to Dachau, where he died. Henry Zwans, a Jesuit secondary school teacher in The Hague, was arrested for distributing copies of Bishop von Galen’s homilies and died there. Leo DeConnick instructed the Belgian clergy to resist the Nazis. He was arrested and imprisoned in Dachau.
Parish priests were sent to Dachau for quoting or reading Pius XI’s encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge or for providing false identity papers to Jews or POW’s. Father Bernhard Lichtenberg, Provost of St.Hednig’s Cathedral in Berlin, became known for his evening prayers for the fallen soldiers on both sides, Jews and all the persecuted. Lichtenberg said prayers in public for the Jews on the evening of Kristallnacht. He called on all Catholics to protect Jews and asked to be deported with Jews to the Ghetto of Lodz. Lichtenberg was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned for two years. He died of heart failure while being transported to Dachau.
… To further dehumanize the prisoners they no longer had names, but were known by a number. One such inmate was Karl Leisner, a German seminarian, who became No. 22356.
By 1940, all Catholic clergy in Dachau were placed in three main barracks built for 360 people. Every morning came roll call, and then work within or outside the camp began. In bitter winter, some were given the task of removing the snow off the roofs without shovels. The prisoners’ diet was calculated to produce constant hunger. In the morning there was a mug of black coffee and a slice of bread. In the afternoon a small cup of watery soup, and at night margarine and a piece of black bread. It didn’t take long for an inmate to be reduced to a skeleton. After a day of hard labor and malnourishment, the inmates trudged back to the filthy, vermin-infested barracks. There was the constant fear of becoming sick and having to go to the contagious wards of the infirmary. The SS guards refused to enter. Priests volunteered to minister to the sick.
One of the most remarkable episodes to come out of Dachau is the story of Karl Leisner. Leisner was admitted to the seminary in 1934 by Bishop von Galen, who was an uncompromising opponent of the Nazis. In 1934, Leisner’s studies in the seminary were interrupted when he was called up for compulsory work service. All of the workers while in service were subjected to Nazi propaganda and bitter attacks on the Catholic Church. The Gestapo considered Leisner to be dangerous because he organized Sunday Mass for the other conscripts. His home was raided by the Gestapo and his papers, correspondence, and diaries were confiscated.
After Leisner’s compulsory service was completed he returned to the seminary. Following a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1939, Leisner commented that it was a pity that Hitler had escaped. The Gestapo had a file on him and took him into custody. During the interrogation, Leisner did not back away from his statement.
In December of 1940, Leisner was sent to Dachau. The 25 year-old seminarian tried to keep up the morale of his fellow inmates and helped others to survive every way possible. But it didn’t take long for his tuberculosis, which had been in remission, to become active again. One evening, two SS guards came into his barracks for inspection, picked him out of the group and beat him unconscious. In March of 1942, he began spitting blood and was admitted to the dreaded hospital block, where he was placed in a room with 150 other TB patients.
More:
seattlecatholic.com/article_20030328.html
Giovanni Palatucci, a deeply religious young police officer, helped to save an estimated 5,000 Jewish refugees by destroying index files, and securing false identity papers. He arranged for their transportation to southern Italy where his uncles Giuseppe Palatucci, the Bishop of Compagna, and Alfonso Palatucci, the Provincial of the Franciscan Order in Puglia, had established safe havens. He was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Dachau. On February 10, 1945, ten weeks before the liberation of Dachau, the deeply religious 36 year old died. Fritz Michael Gerlich director of the Catholic newspaper Der Gerade Weg (The Narrow Way) was arrested and sent to Dachau, where he died. Henry Zwans, a Jesuit secondary school teacher in The Hague, was arrested for distributing copies of Bishop von Galen’s homilies and died there. Leo DeConnick instructed the Belgian clergy to resist the Nazis. He was arrested and imprisoned in Dachau.
Parish priests were sent to Dachau for quoting or reading Pius XI’s encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge or for providing false identity papers to Jews or POW’s. Father Bernhard Lichtenberg, Provost of St.Hednig’s Cathedral in Berlin, became known for his evening prayers for the fallen soldiers on both sides, Jews and all the persecuted. Lichtenberg said prayers in public for the Jews on the evening of Kristallnacht. He called on all Catholics to protect Jews and asked to be deported with Jews to the Ghetto of Lodz. Lichtenberg was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned for two years. He died of heart failure while being transported to Dachau.
… To further dehumanize the prisoners they no longer had names, but were known by a number. One such inmate was Karl Leisner, a German seminarian, who became No. 22356.
By 1940, all Catholic clergy in Dachau were placed in three main barracks built for 360 people. Every morning came roll call, and then work within or outside the camp began. In bitter winter, some were given the task of removing the snow off the roofs without shovels. The prisoners’ diet was calculated to produce constant hunger. In the morning there was a mug of black coffee and a slice of bread. In the afternoon a small cup of watery soup, and at night margarine and a piece of black bread. It didn’t take long for an inmate to be reduced to a skeleton. After a day of hard labor and malnourishment, the inmates trudged back to the filthy, vermin-infested barracks. There was the constant fear of becoming sick and having to go to the contagious wards of the infirmary. The SS guards refused to enter. Priests volunteered to minister to the sick.
One of the most remarkable episodes to come out of Dachau is the story of Karl Leisner. Leisner was admitted to the seminary in 1934 by Bishop von Galen, who was an uncompromising opponent of the Nazis. In 1934, Leisner’s studies in the seminary were interrupted when he was called up for compulsory work service. All of the workers while in service were subjected to Nazi propaganda and bitter attacks on the Catholic Church. The Gestapo considered Leisner to be dangerous because he organized Sunday Mass for the other conscripts. His home was raided by the Gestapo and his papers, correspondence, and diaries were confiscated.
After Leisner’s compulsory service was completed he returned to the seminary. Following a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1939, Leisner commented that it was a pity that Hitler had escaped. The Gestapo had a file on him and took him into custody. During the interrogation, Leisner did not back away from his statement.
In December of 1940, Leisner was sent to Dachau. The 25 year-old seminarian tried to keep up the morale of his fellow inmates and helped others to survive every way possible. But it didn’t take long for his tuberculosis, which had been in remission, to become active again. One evening, two SS guards came into his barracks for inspection, picked him out of the group and beat him unconscious. In March of 1942, he began spitting blood and was admitted to the dreaded hospital block, where he was placed in a room with 150 other TB patients.
More:
seattlecatholic.com/article_20030328.html