|
4/6/2018 0 Comments April 06th, 2018 Beaten and tortured by the Chinese Communist soldiers, Father Emilius Ying (b. 1886) collapsed during the Death March and died on September 23, 1947.
A native of the province of Shantung (old form of Shandong), he had always been a rather cantankerous priest, who angered easily, especially against the foreigners, the Western invaders in his beloved China. When he died in Teng Chia Yu, on September 23, it was said that he died of a broken heart, because it proved too much for him that his very torturers were not foreigners, but his fellow Chinese. VIVA CRISTO REY! 萬歲耶穌基督國王!
0 Comments
4/5/2018 1 Comment April 05th, 2018  Father Jan Bak, from the Gniezno-Poznań archdiocese in Poland, resided in a section of Poland that had been taken over by the Socialist Germans and renamed Warthegua.
Father Bak was arrested, on October 6, 1941, swept up in the mass arrests of Polish Catholic priests on the 6th and 7th of October 1941, in Warthegua. The arrests followed the September 13, 1941 Socialist German's implentation of the decree of "Without God, Without Religion, Without Priest and Sacrament," in the German-occupied Warthegau. That policy of German Socialist Arthur Greiser (the governor of Warthegua) dissolved the Roman Catholic Church and replaced it with the Catholic German National Church, separate from the Vatican and subject to German law. Father Bak was held in a Posen jail, then shipped to Dauchau extermination camp, on October 30, 1941, where he received the number 28422. Transported to Hartheim Euthanasia Center, he was murdered in a gas chamber, on May 4, 1942. VIVA CRISTO REY! Niech żyje Chrystus Król! 4/5/2018 1 Comment April 05th, 2018 Having endured the Death March at the brutal hands of the Chinese Communists, Brother Ireneus Wang (born 1884) could go no farther and died on December 5, 1947, at Wo Yang Tai.
Blood poisoning was the cause of death, a result of the festering wounds in his hands, which had been tied with wire by his torturers, the Communist soldiers. A native of Yu Chou Hsien, Chahar province, his specialty had been in viticulture – growing grapes, which he had taught himself. He also worked miracles with the apricot trees dotting the ravines. Both crops had added economically to the financially strapped abbey of Our Lady of Consolation, in the mountains of northern China. Apricots, a stone fruit, each had an edible nut inside, which the monks marketed, after they had – during the long winter months – patiently cracked open the stones and extracted the nuts. Not ones to waste, the monks burned the bits of stone for fuel in the calefactory, the common room in the cloister where they warmed themselves in the bitter winters. VIVA CRISTO REY! 萬歲耶穌基督國王! 4/4/2018 0 Comments April 04th, 2018  October 6, 1941 arrests (Warthegau): On Septermber 9, 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 October 6-7, 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 October 30, 1941, most of them were transported to KL Dachau concentration camp.
VIVA CRISTO REY! Niech żyje Chrystus Król! 4/4/2018 0 Comments April 04th, 2018 Beaten and starved while forced to continue on the Death March, at the hands of the torturous Chinese Communists, Brother Gabrielus Tien died, on November 2, 1947.
Born in Pa Kua Tsun (old form of Baguacun), in Chahar province, near the abbey of Our Lady of Consolation, he would never return home. VIVA CRISTO REY! 萬歲耶穌基督國王! 4/3/2018 1 Comment April 03rd, 2018  When Hitler's death troops marched into Poland, Father Adalbert "Krystyn" Gondek, in the Order of Friars Minor, was the vicar of the monastery, confessor and preacher in Włocławek.
But the Socialist Germans had plans for the land that they had grabbed, and that included Włocławek: the Germanization of the Reichsgau Wartheland, introduced on January 29, 1940. The German Socialists forcibly removed the Polish people from Wartheland, which included those in Włocławek. One of those, Father Adalbert "Krystyn" Gondek, was arrested by the Gestapo on August 26, 1940, on the solemnity of Our Lady of Częstochowa. First shipped to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the priest was then transferred to Dachau extermination camp, on December 12, 1940, where he was renamed Prisoner Number 32779. Of delicate health, he suffered from a chronic pulmonary disease, as well as torture by the guards, but he remained faithful to God. As death approached, he was removed from his barracks and told his fellow prisoners: "I will not come back again, because the Lord is waiting for me. I'm going to the Lord. See you in heaven." Father Adalbert "Krystyn" Gondek died, on July 23, 1942, and his body was burned in the camp's crematorium. VIVA CRISTO REY! Niech żyje Chrystus Król! 4/3/2018 1 Comment April 03rd, 2018 The more Father Seraphinus Shih refused Tui-Shih Li’s encouragement and enticement of apostasy, the more the Communists pounded away on him, beating him, clubbing him, kicking him without stopping.
The more he remained constant in his faith, the more the Communists resented him, loathed him, hated him. With each passing day, the brutality of his torturers increased. His hands were bound behind his back by tying his thumbs together with wire, then his big toes were bound together with wire, and, finally, his legs were pulled behind him so that his toes and thumbs were joined by a short wire, so short that he could only kneel or lie on his side at all times. He remained hogtied for several weeks, and the beatings continued. “We know that you don’t fear death, but we will beat and torture you continuously so that you will never possess more than half of your life. Thus being half alive and half dead, you will agree with what we say,” the torturers taunted. When Father Seraphinus was dragged back to his place among the other prisoners after interrogations, he never complained. He merely lay with his body quivering from pain. Occasionally, only a sob would escape. But Father Seraphinus never gave in. Then, on January 20, Father Seraphinus was rounded up with five fellow monks: Chrysostomus Chang, Brother Eligius Hsu, Brother Damianus Huang, Brother Alexius Liu, and Brother Joannes Maria Miao. “You are going to be freed,” the soldiers told them. Jostled in the madness, the monks fell to their knees. With their swollen hands tied and chained behind their backs, they couldn’t even cross themselves – In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost – a final time. The death squad – Communist soldiers at the ready – loaded their rifles with fresh rounds of ammo. Shots rang out. One, then the next, followed by the next, the monks collapsed upon the blood-splashed, frozen ground. Their lifeless bodies, dragged to a nearby sewage ditch and dumped into a heap, one on top of the other. Alerted by the shots, wild dogs, roaming the village’s dirt roads, scavenging for scraps, hurried over to the bodies to investigate. Sniffing, they lapped up the warm blood, steaming in the icy air. It was all over. Our Lady of Consolation was no more. VIVA CRISTO REY! 萬歲耶穌基督國王! 4/2/2018 0 Comments April 02nd, 2018 After Socialist Adolf Hitler sent his death troops into Poland, on September 1, 1939, terror spread through the nation and through the Catholic Church.
The Socialist Nazis first arrested Catholic priest Father Steven Abt, in August 1941, released him a month later, and then rearrested him the following month, on September 6, 1941. First locked up in Posen concentration camp, he was shipped to Dachau extermination camp where he, as Prisoner Number 28053, was exterminated in a gas chamber, on August 10, 1942. VIVA CRISTO REY! Niech żyje Chrystus Król! 4/2/2018 0 Comments April 02nd, 2018 For a few of the monks, the Death March through the mountains of norther China was coming to an end.
Brother Joannes Maria Miao and five of his confreres were rounded up, on January 20, 1948. “You are going to be freed,” the soldiers told them. Jostled in the madness, the monks fell to their knees. With their swollen hands tied and chained behind their backs, they couldn’t even cross themselves – In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost – a final time. The death squad – Communist soldiers at the ready – loaded their rifles with fresh rounds of ammo. Shots rang out. One, then the next, followed by the next, the monks collapsed upon the blood-splashed, frozen ground. Their lifeless bodies, dragged to a nearby sewage ditch and dumped into a heap, one on top of the other. Alerted by the shots, wild dogs, roaming the village’s dirt roads, scavenging for scraps, hurried over to the bodies to investigate. Sniffing, they lapped up the warm blood, steaming in the icy air. Brother Joannes Maria Miao (b. 1919), from the city of Hai Men, in Chiangsu (old form of Jiangsu) province, on the north bank of the Yangtze River delta, would never return home. VIVA CRISTO REY! 萬歲耶穌基督國王! 4/1/2018 1 Comment April 01st, 2018  Father Antoni Leszczewicz was murdered during the 1943 Operation Winterzauber, orchestrated by Socialist Adolf Hitler, to clear all inhabitants of an eastern European border to make a militaristic buffer zone.
The Socialist Nazis ordered the cold-blooded strategic operation, in which 183 villages were burned to the ground, 11,383 people were brutally killed and 14,175 others were transported to concentration camps, where they were to labor, with little to no food. On February 17, 1943, in Rosica, Father Antoni Leszczewicz, a Marian Father, was burned alive, like countless others. VIVA CRISTO REY! Niech żyje Chrystus Król! 4/1/2018 0 Comments April 01st, 2018 For Brother Conradus Ma, a Trappist monk of Our Lady of Consolation abbey, the Death March in the mountains of northern China ended at Teng Chia Yu.
Born in 1872, no longer would the native of Peking suffer torture at the hands of the Chinese Communists. The Trappist Brother, sickly, old and infirm, died loyal to Christ and to Pope. He was one of many who died in September 1947. At the announcement of each death, the monks' torturer, Tui-Shih, Li could barely contain his glee. “Wonderful! We have saved one more bullet!” he cheered. After each death of their confreres, four monks, escorted by weapon-ready soldiers, carried each body to where they would be forced to dump their confrere in a shallow grave, covered over with a powdering of dirt. At night, the smell of death lured the wolves and wild dogs that unearthed the decaying bodies, tearing off legs and arms, gnawing on the flesh and muscle. What wasn’t devoured was left lying on the ground, visible. Only after the villagers of Teng Chia Yu complained to the Communists were the dead reburied, with the mauled remains re-interred in a grave slightly deeper, or just deep enough. VIVA CRISTO REY! 萬歲耶穌基督國王! |
AuthorTHERESA MARIE MOREAU is an award-winning reporter who covers Catholicism and Communism. Archives
October 2023
Categories |
RSS Feed
Proudly powered by Weebly