St. Maximilian Kolbe, Chaplain of Auschwitz

Catholic Heritage with Dr. Italy

In this podcast, other aspects of Kolbe’s life are also discussed which are little known. Kolbe founded a new monastery near Warsaw that grew into a veritable city, with over 1,000 Franciscan Friars living a live of prayer and apostolic activity. This monastery was so large that, in the early days of World War II, before it was shut down by the Nazis, it harbored close to 2,000 Jewish refugees, hiding them from the Germans. Before the war, St. Maximilian saw the importance of using modern media for evangelization, and so began publishing a weekly magazine, and then a daily newspaper which had, on weekends, a circulation of 250,000! The monastery he founded near Warsaw was the base for the creation and distribution of these publications, and it also launched a radio station to utilize the newest media of the day (the 1930’s), radio.