Martyrs of Nowogródek

Epitaph for the martyrs in the Church of the Transfiguration in Nowogródek with an inscription from 1 Jn 3:16 EU : “He gave his life for us. So we too must give our lives for the brothers "

The martyrs of Nowogródek were eleven members of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth who were shot by the Gestapo on August 1, 1943 in what was then Nowogródek, Poland (now Nawahradak , Belarus ). Pope John Paul II beatified the martyrs on March 5, 2000 in Rome .

history

The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth came to Nowogródek in 1929 at the behest of Bishop Zygmunt Łoziński . During the National Socialist occupation, the sisters worked hard to look after the city's residents. Of the approximately 20,000 inhabitants of the city, around half were Jews. The Germans murdered around 9,500 of them and locked the rest of them in labor camps.

On July 31, 1943, the nuns were arrested by the Gestapo and taken to guard. The sisters believed they were being put into forced labor . At dawn on August 1, they were loaded onto trucks and driven into the woods five kilometers from town. After a prayer, the eleven nuns were led to a mass grave and shot by the Gestapo. The only surviving sister, Maria Malgorzata Banas, who was not there at the time of the arrest by the National Socialists, later managed to find the mass grave. Until her death in 1966 she looked after the gravesite of her fellow sisters.

Order name	Birth Name	Date of birth	Age on the day of execution
Sr. Maris Stella (Superior)	marAdela Mardosewicz	December 14, 1888	54 years
Sr. M. Rajmunda	cokeAnna Kokołowicz	August 24, 1892	50 years
Sr. M. Imelda	zakJadwiga Karolina Żak	December 29, 1892	50 years
Sr. M. Daniela	jozEleonora Aniela Jóźwik	January 25, 1895	48 years
Sr. M. Kanuta	chrJózefa Chrobot	May 22, 1896	47 years
Sr. M. Gwidona	cieHelena Cierpka	April 11, 1900	43 years
Sr. M. Sergia	rapJulia Rapiej	18th August 1900	42 years
Sr. M. Kanizja	macEugenia Mackiewicz	November 27, 1903	39 years
Sr. M. Felicyta	boronPaulina Borowik	August 30, 1905	37 years
Sr. M. Heliodora	matLeokadia Matuszewska	February 8, 1906	37 years
Sr. M. Boromea	narWeronika Narmontowicz	December 18, 1916	26 years

Web links

Painting of the execution of Adam Styka (1890-1959)

Individual evidence

↑ Beatification of 44 martyrs in St. Peter's Square. Vatican, March 5, 2000, accessed January 29, 2015 .

[selig-1] Beatification of 44 martyrs in St. Peter's Square. Vatican, March 5, 2000, accessed January 29, 2015 .