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| Blessed Jan Eugeniusz Bajewski, Intercede for us ! |
⛪ Saint of the Day : May 7
⛪ Other Names :
• Antonin Bajewski • Prisoner 12764
⛪ Memorial :
• 12 June as one of the 108 Martyrs of World War II
⛪ Born :
• 17 January 1915 in Vilnius, Lithuania
⛪ Died :
• 8 May 1941 in the Oswiecim (Auschwitz) death camp, Malopolskie, occupied Poland
Jan Eugeniusz was born at Vilnius on January 17, 1915, the only child of Jan and Aniela Wilkowska. His parents were well-to-do. He was baptized on March 14, 1918, in the parish church of the Holy Spirit, at Vilnius.
After the middle school certificate, he continued his studies, at first in the royal gymnasium J. Lelewel and then in the classical gymnasium A. Mickiewicz, also in Vilnius. He was a very gifted person. He could speak fluently several languages. On June 16, 1933, he obtained a diploma and decided to consecrate himself to God, in spite of his family’s resistance. This is what he wrote about that period of his life: “In 1933, after the school diploma, I was faced with a dilemma: to become a friar or a diocesan priest. As some of my classmates came from the diocesan seminary, and I often went to visit them, I opted for the second solution even if in my heart I was more inclined to a religious Order.” So he began to study in the major seminary of the Diocese of Vilnius. However, his vocation for the religious life was so strong that, after one year of studies, he left the diocesan seminary and entered the Conventual Franciscan Order. He was accepted in the Polish Province on August 17, 1934, and on September 1st of the same year he received the Franciscan habit and the name Antonin. He spent his novitiate in Niepokalanow, where he pronounced the temporary vows on September 2, 1935. Afterward, he started again to study theology in the Franciscan seminary of Krakow. He crowned his religious formation with perpetual profession on November 1, 1938, and priestly ordination on May 1, 1939. His first destination was Niepokalanow, where he arrived on July 2, 1939. Very soon the guardian of the friary, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, chose him as his second substitute, that is, the second vicar of the friary.
The brethren of his community remember Fr. Antonin Bajewski as a generous priest, who distinguished himself for his deep faith, devotion, spirit of prayer and gentleness toward others. Because of his weak health, Father Antonin spent the first months after his arrival in Niepokalanow in the nursing home, called “Lasek,” a couple of kilometers from the friary. Here, he was staying at the outbreak of the Second World War, on September 1, 1939. When the Germans, on September 19th, arrested and deported almost all the friars who remained in the friary of Niepokalanow, those who resided in the “Lasek,” including Father Antonin, avoided the imprisonment.
Martyrdom :
However, later he could not avoid the arrest. On February 17, 1941, the Gestapo arrested him, together with Father Maximilian, Fr. Pius Bartosik and other two friars from Niepokalanow, and he was detained in the Pawiak prison, in Warsaw. During his stay in that prison, Father Antonin encouraged his fellow prisoners, showing great patience, inviting them to behave correctly and offering them his rations of food. While in prison, he continued to wear the Franciscan habit, although it was the cause of additional ill treatment by the SS. In the night between the 4th and 5th of April 1941, he was transported with Father Pius to Auschwitz, where he was tattooed with the number 12764. When he arrived in the “lager,” he was brutally beaten by the SS with the Franciscan rosary he wore on his side.
Besides these mistreatments, Father Antonin suffered because he became ill with abdominal typhus. In spite of his disease, he devoted himself to the patients of the “lager,” as the good Samaritan, giving them bodily and spiritual help, above all through the sacrament of Confession, seriously risking his life. He patiently bore the sufferings of life in the “lager,” often repeating: “I’m nailed to the cross together with Christ.”
Exhausted by hard labor, Father Antonin died in Auschwitz on May 8, 1941, on the day dedicated to the martyr St. Stanislaus. Before his death, he said to Fr. Konrad Szweda, who had heard his last confession, “Tell my brethren of Niepokalanow that I died here, faithful to Christ and Mary.” He died with the names of Jesus and Mary on his lips.
Father Antonin was proclaimed "blessed" by Pope John Paul II on June 13, 1999.
