Józef Mamica

Memorial plaque in Drahomischl

Józef Mamica (born August 13, 1878 in Pruchna ; † August 3, 1940 in Gusen concentration camp ) was a Polish pastor and a victim of National Socialism .

Life

Józef Mamica grew up as the son of a farming family in the Duchy of Teschen in Silesia . After graduating from high school in Cieszyn , he went to Vienna and Basel , where he studied theology . He was ordained in 1903 and from then on worked as a Protestant pastor in the Nieder Bludowitz parish in the Habsburg Kingdom . As after the First World War the borders between Poland and Czechoslovakiawere drawn again, Mamica, known as the Polish patriot, had to leave the community. In Paris he worked in vain for the connection of Greater Silesia to Poland.

Mamica continued his pastoral activity in Poznan and founded several Protestant congregations, including in Bromberg , Thorn and Graudenz . From 1923 to 1930 he worked in an orphanage in Marszałki . With the chaplain Ryszard Paszko , he edited prayer books.

He retired in 1935. When the Wehrmacht marched into Poland in 1939 , he was arrested. From April to August he was interned in the concentration camps Dachau , Mauthausen and most recently in Gusen . He died of starvation and exhaustion on August 3, 1940.

His grave is in the evangelical cemetery in Cieszyn .

literature

• Isabella Girstmair: Józef Mamica . In: Irmgard Aschbauer, Andreas Baumgartner, Isabella Girstmair (eds.): Freedom is in fact alone. Resistance to National Socialism for religious reasons. Biographies and contributions to the 2009 International Symposium . Edition Mauthausen, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902605-17-7 , p. 125 .