April 18th, 2018

Hitler's death troops stormed into Poland, on September 1, 1939, igniting World War II and stealing land from the Poles to make room for German occupiers.

Father Anastazy Jakub Pankiewicz, Roman Catholic Franciscan priest-monk, was in the monastery in Łódź when the German Socialist Gestapo forced their way into the monastery, on January 2, 1940, and forced all the monks out. The Germans took over the monastery and used it as a stable and garage.

"On 13.09.1941 Gaulaiter of German‑occupied Wartheland, Artur Greiser, implementing "Ohne Gott, ohne Religion, ohne Priesters und Sakramenten"— "without God, without religion, without priest and sacrament"— policy issued a decree formally dissolving Catholic Church and forming in its place a Roman Catholic German National Church in Wartheland, an organization subject to a German private law. All the contacts with Vatican were forbidden. All the religion congregations were also dissolved. On 06‑07.10.1941 mass arrests of Polish Catholic priests took place. All were herded into Konstantynów or Ląd on Warta river transit camps or KL Posen concentration camp. On 30.10.1941 most of them were transported to KL Dachau concentration camp." -- FROM: http://www.swzygmunt.knc.pl.Father Anastazy

Jakub Pankiewicz was arrested on October 6, 1941,the day that the Germans conducted a mass arrest of almost all the priests in Wartheland, in an attempt to liquidate the Catholic Church. He was taken to a transit camp in Konstantynów Łódzki, and from there, on October 30, 1941, he was shipped to Dachau extermination camp, where he was Prisoner 28176.

Forced to work all day, in all weather conditions and little food, beatings, exhaustion, many priests died, and in front of the camp crematorium was a stack of bodies of Polish priests, waiting to be burned.

On May 20, 1942, Father Anastazy Jakub Pankiewicz was selected to go with the Transport of Invalids, to Hartheim Euthanasia Center. After he climbed inside the train and tried to help the last aboard, a German guard slammed the door shut, and the sharp metal edges of the door sliced off both hands of Father Anastazy Jakub Pankiewicz.

From the train station, the prisoners were transported with vans to Hartheim castle, but the vans were soon used as a sealed gas chamber with exhaust pipes delivering lethal poison to those inside. The poisoning of the prisoners took only 5 to 7 minutes.

VIVA CRISTO REY! Niech żyje Chrystus Król!