Jarogniew Wojciechowski

Memorial at the New Catholic Cemetery in Dresden

Jarogniew Wojciechowski (born November 5, 1922 in Posen , † August 24, 1942 in Dresden ) was a Polish youth and student of the Salesians of Don Bosco . During the German occupation of Poland, he was sentenced to death by the Nazi judiciary and executed with other young Poles in 1942. He is venerated as a Polish martyr by the Roman Catholic Church and was beatified by Pope John Paul II .

Life

As a result of his father's alcohol addiction , Yarogniev left his family, switched schools and lived with his older sister. He found support in the oratory of the Salesians Don Bosco in Poznań , a church care facility for boys. There he joined the circle of friends of the two to three years older group leaders Czesław Jóźwiak , Edward Kaźmierski , Franciszek Kęsy and Edward Klinik , who met regularly. The German invasion of Poland and the incorporation of Posen into the German Reich marked a deep turning point in the lives of the boys. They were on 23./24. Arrested September 1940 for alleged political activity and initially held in the notorious Fort VII in Poznan . After various other stations in prisons and penal camps, Jarogniew was brought to Zwickau in May 1942 and sentenced to death on July 31, 1942, together with four older friends, for alleged preparation for high treason by the Poznan Higher Regional Court on the basis of the Polish Criminal Law Ordinance . The judgment was carried out on August 24, 1942 in the Dresden execution site on Münchner Platz . The prison chaplain, Father Franz Bänsch OMI, accompanied the group of convicts, consisting of eight young Poles, with pastoral care to the scaffold . They are among the victims of the extremely harsh Germanization policy pursued by National Socialist Germany in the so-called Warthegau , which not infrequently also turned against church groups and intellectuals.

Commemoration

The place of execution in Dresden became a memorial to the anti-fascist resistance in the GDR . Because of their ecclesiastical background, the names of the five friends from the Poznan Oratory were not mentioned there. “The Five”, as they are called in Poland, were beatified on June 13, 1999 by the Polish Pope John Paul II, together with 103 other Polish martyrs of the German occupation regime. In the same year the grave was rediscovered in the New Catholic Cemetery in Dresden; a monument of the Catholic parish of St. Paulus in Dresden-Plauen reminds of Wojciechowski among others. The day of remembrance is August 24th, and June 12th in the Salesians' own calendar. Also on June 12th, the six blessed martyrs from Münchner Platz in Dresden will be commemorated, among whom, in addition to the five boys, the Polish friar Grzegorz Frąckowiak SVD , who was executed eight months later at the same place , is counted. A Roman Catholic parish that was newly formed in the Diocese of Dresden-Meißen on June 1, 2020 was named after these six Nazi victims .

literature

• Johannes Wielgoß SDS : Blessed Franciscek Kęsy and Blessed Edward Clinic. In: Helmut Moll (ed.): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. Volume I. 7th, revised and updated edition, Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , pp. 221-224.

Web links

• Entry on heiligenlexikon.de
• Antonio Borrelli: Beato Jarogniew Wojciechowski Martire. Short biography on santiebeati.it (Italian)