{ "_meta": { "project": "Latin Prayer", "projectUrl": "https://latinprayer.org", "apiDocs": "https://latinprayer.org/llms.txt", "content": "Maximilian Kolbe — feast August 14.", "saint": { "slug": "maximilian-kolbe", "name": "Maximilian Kolbe", "latinName": "Maximilianus Kolbe", "feastMonth": 8, "feastDay": 14, "feastLabel": "August 14", "epochLabel": "1894–1941, Poland", "summary": "Conventual Franciscan friar and martyr. Volunteered to take the place of a stranger condemned to starvation at Auschwitz.", "imageUrl": null, "imageCredit": null, "sourceUrl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Kolbe", "commonsClass": "martyr-one", "url": "https://latinprayer.org/saints/maximilian-kolbe/", "jsonUrl": "https://latinprayer.org/saints/maximilian-kolbe.json" } }, "slug": "maximilian-kolbe", "name": "Maximilian Kolbe", "latinName": "Maximilianus Kolbe", "feastMonth": 8, "feastDay": 14, "feastLabel": "August 14", "epochLabel": "1894–1941, Poland", "summary": "Conventual Franciscan friar and martyr. Volunteered to take the place of a stranger condemned to starvation at Auschwitz.", "imageUrl": null, "imageCredit": null, "sourceUrl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Kolbe", "commonsClass": "martyr-one", "url": "https://latinprayer.org/saints/maximilian-kolbe/", "jsonUrl": "https://latinprayer.org/saints/maximilian-kolbe.json", "bodyMarkdown": "Born Rajmund Kolbe in Russian-occupied Poland, he entered the\nConventual Franciscans as a young man and took the religious\nname Maximilian Maria. Active before the war as a publisher and\nMarian apologist, he founded the city of Niepokalanów (\"City of\nthe Immaculate One\"), at one point the largest religious\ncommunity in the world.\n\nArrested by the Gestapo in February 1941 for sheltering Jewish\nrefugees and Polish nationalists, he was sent to Auschwitz. In\nlate July, after a prisoner had escaped, the camp commander\nordered ten men chosen to die by starvation as a deterrent. One\nof the chosen, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out for his wife\nand children. Kolbe stepped forward and asked to take his\nplace. The request was granted.\n\nHe spent two weeks in the starvation bunker leading the others\nin prayer; when he was the last alive, the guards killed him on\n14 August 1941 with an injection of carbolic acid. Gajowniczek\nsurvived the war and was present at Kolbe's canonization in\n1982; he lived another fifteen years afterward, dying in 1995.", "bodyHtml": "

Born Rajmund Kolbe in Russian-occupied Poland, he entered the\nConventual Franciscans as a young man and took the religious\nname Maximilian Maria. Active before the war as a publisher and\nMarian apologist, he founded the city of Niepokalanów (“City of\nthe Immaculate One”), at one point the largest religious\ncommunity in the world.

\n

Arrested by the Gestapo in February 1941 for sheltering Jewish\nrefugees and Polish nationalists, he was sent to Auschwitz. In\nlate July, after a prisoner had escaped, the camp commander\nordered ten men chosen to die by starvation as a deterrent. One\nof the chosen, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out for his wife\nand children. Kolbe stepped forward and asked to take his\nplace. The request was granted.

\n

He spent two weeks in the starvation bunker leading the others\nin prayer; when he was the last alive, the guards killed him on\n14 August 1941 with an injection of carbolic acid. Gajowniczek\nsurvived the war and was present at Kolbe’s canonization in\n1982; he lived another fifteen years afterward, dying in 1995.

" }