Maria Imma Mack

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Sister Maria Imma Mack (* February 10, 1924 as Josefa Mack in Möckenlohe near Eichstätt ; † June 21, 2006 in Munich ) was a religious sister of the Congregation of the Poor School Sisters of Our Lady in Munich. Under the code name Mädi, she secretly supplied the prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp with food, letters and liturgical objects.

Life

Josefa Mack became a candidate for the Poor School Sisters in 1940 and worked as a helper in the order 's children's home in Freising from 1942 . In 1944 she received the first order to buy plants and flowers in the nursery of the Dachau concentration camp. She noticed the poor condition of the prisoners there and motivated her fellow sisters to save food so that they could smuggle them into the concentration camp. Every week from May 1944 to April 1945, she rode her bike in summer and pulled a sledge in winter to the Dachau concentration camp and provided the prisoners with food under the pretext of buying flowers.

The young imprisoned priest Ferdinand Schönwälder , who worked in the sales point, asked them to smuggle letters out of the camp for the prisoners. Although she was aware that smuggling letters was punishable by the death penalty, she agreed and thus established contact between the inmates and their relatives and with the Archbishop of Munich and Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Freising . Schönwälder finally asked her to help with the planned secret ordination of the incarcerated deacon Karl Leisner by fellow inmate Bishop Gabriel Piguet of Clermont-Ferrand . She then smuggled liturgical objects such as hosts , mass wine , candles, oils and vestments into the Dachau concentration camp. It was the only ordination of a Catholic priest in a Nazi concentration camp. Pope John Paul II beatified Leisner in 1996 during his visit to Germany in Berlin.

In 1945 she entered the novitiate of the Congregation of the Poor School Sisters of Our Lady in Munich and took the religious name Maria Imma. She made her profession a year later. In 1951 she passed her master's examination to become a dressmaker.

She published her memoirs, especially from the time of National Socialist rule , in 1988 under the title Why I Love Azaleas . Sister Maria died at the age of 82 in her convent in Munich and was buried in Munich's Ostfriedhof .

honors and awards

In 2001 Josefa Maria Imma Mack received the award from the City of Munich Munich lights .

Since there were also many French among the prisoners she took care of, she was accepted into the French Legion of Honor on December 19, 2004 as a knight "femme chevalier" .

In 2005, Sister Josefa Maria Imma was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class .

On May 16, 2007, the new secondary school in Eching ( Freising district ) was named after Imma Mack.

In 2009 the Imma-Mack-Weg (connects Franz-Prüller-Straße with Quellenstraße and crosses the Auer Mühlbach ) was named after her in the Munich district of Au .

Works

  • Why I love azaleas. Memories of my trips to the Dachau concentration camp plantation from May 1944 to April 1945 , EOS-Verlag, St. Ottilien, 11th edition 2008, ISBN 978-3-88096-750-2

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article: Munich: Street named after Sister Imma Mack from July 16, 2009 on medal, accessed online on July 16, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Mack, Maria Imma
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mack, Josefa (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German religious sister
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Möckenlohe near Eichstätt
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 2006
Place of death Munich