The Nazi War Against The Catholic Church. Persecution In Europe Part 3.

German cavalry and motorized units entering Poland from East Prussia during 1939.

"The terrorism to which the clergy and the 500 civilians interned in the concentration camp at Opava (Troppau) in the Sudetens were exposed during September and October, 1939, was particularly frightful. On their arrival they were received with a hail of blows from sticks . . . Their bedding consisted of rotten and verminous straw. The Germans forced the priests to take off their cassocks, and their breviaries and rosaries were taken from them. They were set to the most degrading labours. For any infraction of the regulations, even involuntary, the prisoners were beaten; sometimes, merely in order to terrorize them or perhaps from caprice, they were beaten until the blood ran* Many died.

.. The German police are beginning to take much interest in those who attend the Polish services, and to register their Christian and surnames on the church doors. There have been cases where those attending Polish services have even been photographed. And even prayer-books brought to church by the faithful are examined and listed.

. . The German authorities refuse to allow Polish children to be prepared for confession and first communion in their native language. As the children, boys and girls, very seldom understand a little German, they are forced to wait before being able to receive the Sacrament.

. . . The pilgrimages to the shrine of Our Lady of Pickary have been forbidden; all manifestations of the faith outside the churches have become impossible; and even inside, every act and every word of the priest's is controlled."

Diocese of Lodz —Incorporated in the Reich, with exception of some parishes which are situated in the Government General.

.. An eye witness reports as follows: 'In the diocese of Lodz alone several dozens of priests and religious clergy, with their bishop, Mgr. Tomczak, were sent to Radogoszcz. The newcomers were greeted with a frightful hail of blows with sticks, which did not spare even U.K. Mgr. Tomczak himself. The majority were then left without food for three days. The number of those detained amounted to about 2,000. They had to sleep on mouldy straw. The guards insulted and cruelly maltreated the prisoners. One could not enumerate all the insults and humiliations inflicted on them. The priests were made to wash out the latrines with their hands. It was not rare for the guards to order the prisoners to kneel down in a row, touch the ground with their foreheads, and call out, "We are Polish pigs." One day a policeman came into a room and said sarcastically, "You would like me to hang an image of the Virgin on the wall for you to pray to for victory? That would be the last straw." Then turning to the bishop he added, "You also will be hanged soon." A man who asked to be allowed to tend the bishop's injured foot was shot.'

"After long weeks of this sort of treatment, the sick priests were dismissed from the camp, and immediately sent to the Government General. In this way the unhappy diocese was likewise deprived of its clergy."

Diocese of Wloclawek — Incorporated in the Reich.

. . At Wloclawek, for three months, the people were forbidden to attend any church but that of the Minorities; but there have now for a few weeks been Sunday services in one of the Parish churches. In the deaneries of Lipno and Nieszawa there are no priests any more; in the others there are ever fewer.

"Services, where they are permitted, take place only on Sundays. Marriages and all offerings for the needs of public worship are forbidden. The Catholic Action has been suppressed, and its diocesan president, M. Pulawski, Chamberlain of Cape and Sword to His Holiness, was shot. The popular diocesan weeklies and the outstanding monthly, Athenaeum, edited specially for the clergy, and widely read throughout Poland, have all been suppressed.

"The crosses and chapels have been destroyed, and the patrimony of the Church confiscated; the parochial houses and the lands of the beneficiaries have been confiscated, and the revenues of the clergy stolen. After the publication of the encyclical Summi Pontificates, the police destroyed a monument to Pope Pius XI put up on the walls of the Cathedral.

"The college and the Dlugosz episcopal lyc6e at Wloclawek have been occupied and stripped of all their modern equipment, and are at present used by the soldiers. The Jesuit church and novitiate at Kalisz were made into a temporary prison for persons exiled to the Government General. The Salesians had to move from their properties and the school buildings belonging to the Ursulines of Wloclawek were turned into barracks ; and the Sisters of St. Vincent were driven from their hospital at Wloclawek and from all their other works."

Supplement to report of Jan. 9th
last on the religious situation in
the Archdiocese of Gniezno and Poznan.

Archdiocese of Poznan

.. In general, the situation in the archdiocese of Poznan may be stated as follows:

5 priests shot.

27 priests confined in harsh concentration camps at Stuthof and elsewhere in the Altreich.

190 priests in prison or in the concentration camps at Bruczkow, Chludowo, Goruszki, Kazmierz Biskupi, Lad, Lubin, and Puszczykowo.

35 priests expelled into the territory called Government General.

11 priests died in prison and their bodies burned in crematoria.

11 priests seriously ill in consequence of ill-treatment.

122 parishes entirely without priests.

Documents: Report of Feb. 19, 1940.

". . . The Chapel of the Ursulines at Koscierzyna has been profaned. The sacred vestments were used for sacrilegious buffooneries. One of the stoles was put on a dog.

Documents: Report of Feb. 27, 1940.

"... A few days ago I was at Katowice, when there were renewed mass executions of Poles on the space near the municipal park. Among the victims were priests. Their eyes were bandaged with pocket-handkerchiefs. After the volley had been fired, these same handkerchiefs, blood-stained though they might be, were used to bandage the eyes of others of the condemned. One of the priests was not killed and began to rise. He was then dispatched by blows with gun-butts.

Documents: Report of April 5, 1940.

"... In the monastery at ...................... a few serving brothers were all who were left. The last monk had been deported in November to a concentration camp near Danzig. The aspect of .................. is completely changed. The crosses and commemorative monuments have disappeared from the streets and the park. A beautiful statue of the Holy Virgin, at the feet of which numerous religious manifestations used to take place, has disappeared. The chapel of the religious community has been closed and the pews burnt in the stoves. The Church has been closed. The consecrated linen from the chapel and the church, the chandeliers and all the objects used in the church services have been carried away. On March 14th the new Hitlerian tenants got up a religious masquerade. They rang the Church bells, which had been silent for months, and when the faithful from the vicinity arrived, they saw a crowd of young people making merry, wearing chasubles, copes, and priests' berets, going round the park in procession, with rosaries and holy water sprinklers in their hands. The people withdrew in indignation. It was the eve of the festival of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows!

Documents: Report of April 7, 1940.

"Those who have been worst treated are Canon Szreybrowski, Curate Janicki of Sroda, Father Haase, rural dean to Kicin, and Canon Swinarski of Czarnkow. The priests* families were told they must pay three marks to have their ashes."

FINAL OBSERVATIONS OF CARDINAL HLOND, PRIMATE OF POLAND, CONCLUDING HIS REPORTS TO POPE PIUS XII

". . . Hitlerism aims at the systematic and total destruction of the Catholic Church in the rich and fertile territories of Poland which have been incorporated in the Reich.

"... Almost everywhere the ecclesiastical administration of the dioceses has been effectively destroyed. The bishops, even when they are left in their sees, are only allowed to exercise their pastoral functions to a very limited extent.

"... The Cathedrals have been closed and their keys are kept by the invaders; one has been made into a garage. Five bishops' palaces have been invaded, and one of them has been turned into an inn, the bishop's chapel serving as a ballroom. In the chapel of the Primate's palace at Poznan the police have put a dog-kennel. All the seminary students have been dispersed and the seminaries occupied by the Hitlerian authorities.

. . It is known for certain that thirty-five priests have been shot, but the real number of victims, whose names could not be ascertained, undoubtedly amounts to more than a hundred. More than twenty have died in prison. A hundred priests were maltreated and tortured; another hundred are suffering in concentration camps; hundreds of others, again, have been driven into Central Poland. Those who have been permitted to stay are subjected to numerous humiliations, are paralyzed in the exercise of their pastoral duties, and are stripped of their parochial benefices and all their rights. They are entirely at the mercy of the Gestapo, without possibility of appeal.

"In many districts the life of the Church has been completely crushed, the clergy having been almost all expelled; the Catholic churches and cemeteries are in the hands of the invaders. Catholic worship hardly exists any more; the word of God is not preached, the Sacraments are not administered, even to the dying. In certain localities Confession is forbidden. In the remainder of the territory the churches can be open only on Sundays, and then for a very short time. For seven months marriages between Poles have been forbidden. The Catholic Action has been completely suppressed. The Catholic press has been destroyed. The least initiative in the matter of the religious life is forbidden. Charitable associations and works have likewise been destroyed.

"Monasteries and convents have been methodically suppressed, as well as their flourishing works of education, publicity, social welfare, charity, and care of the sick. Their houses and their institutes have been occupied by the army or the Nazi party. Many monks have been imprisoned ; a great number of nuns have been dispersed.

. . The invaders have, further, confiscated or sequestrated the patrimony of the Church, considering themselves as its masters. The Cathedrals, the bishops' palaces, the seminaries, the canons' residences, the revenues and endowments of bishoprics and chapters, the funds of the curias and seminaries, the fields and woods constituting the ecclesiastical benefices, the churches with their furnishings, the presbyteries with their furniture, and the personal property of the priests, the archives, and the diocesan or religious museums—all have been pillaged by the invaders."

The Nazi War Against The Catholic Church. Persecution In Europe Part 2.

Hitler in Warsaw

"The clergy is subjected to the same treatment as the priests of the archdiocese of Gniezno. They are maltreated, arrested, held in prison or concentration camps, deported to Germany, expelled to Central Poland. At present about fifty are in prison and in concentration camps.

"The pastors Rev. John Jadrzyk of Lechlin, Rev. Anthony Kozlowicz, Rev. Adam Schmidt of Roznowo, and Rev. Anthony Rzadki, professor of religion at Srem, have been shot. There is insistent report that other priests have also been shot, but the report is not certain, for one reason that the executions are being carried out now without publicity being given to them.

. . The churches that are open can be used for devotions only on Sundays from 9 till 11. Priests have begun to say Mass on week-days in the early hours of the morning behind closed doors. Marriages are not being celebrated. There are no sermons and no music. Crucifixes have been removed from classrooms, as well as holy pictures, and religion is no longer taught.

"The Polish Episcopate had made Poznan the national centre for organization and direction of religious activity and especially of the Catholic Action for the entire Republic. Unfortunately, all these centres of tremendous activity, charitable works, organizations, and publications have been destroyed by German authorities.

"The national centres of the Pontifical Association for the Propagation of the Faith, and of St. Peter Apostle have been suppressed.
"... The National Institute for Catholic Action has been abolished. It was the directing centre of all the Catholic activity in Poland.
.. The National President of Catholic Action, the lawyer Mr. Dziembowski, and the office staff are in prison. The Director of the National Institute, Rev. Francis Marlewski, was first imprisoned, then expelled into Central Poland.

"The offices of the national centres of the Association of Catholic Women were raided and assigned to other purposes; the same is true of the offices of the Catholic Youth and Catholic Girls Associations. The National President of the Catholic Youth Association, Edward Potworowski, a noble of Gola, Private Chamberlain of Cape and Sword to His Holiness, was publicly shot in Gostyn Square. The President of the Catholic Girls Association, Miss Maria Su-chocka, also of a noble family, together with her mother and brother, who had been deprived of his pharmacy at Pleszew, was robbed even of personal effects and expelled to Central Poland.

"The Graduate School of Catholic Social Studies has been closed.
. . The Catholic Institute of Pedagogy has been closed. This was a school recognized officially, destined to form competent and qualified teachers and nurses for Catholic schools and hospitals. It was frequented by many Sisters.

"The illustrated Catholic weekly, Przewodnik Katolicki, a paper for the people, has ceased to exist after a brilliant career of forty-three years.

"The esteemed Catholic weekly, Kultura, has been suppressed.

"The Tecza, an illustrated, literary Catholic monthly of more than ordinary value, is no longer edited.

"The Ruch Katolicki has been suppressed, a monthly publication and official organ of Catholic Action.

"The Zjednoczenie, an organ of the National Association of Catholic Women, the Przyjaciel Mlodziezy and the Mloda Polka, organs respectively of the Catholic Boys and the Catholic Girls Associations, have been suppressed.

"The Teologia Praktyczna, monthly pastoral review for the clergy of Poland, has been suppressed.

"The monthly review Ruch Charytatywny, organ of the Christian Charity movement in Poland, has been suppressed.

"The Przewodnik Spoleczny, a Catholic monthly dedicated to modern social questions, has been suppressed.

"Besides these organizations and publications of national scope, all the organizations and publications in Poznan belonging to the archdiocese of Gniezno and Poznan were suppressed."

Report of Nov. 29, 1939.

. . Our boys and a part of our girls over fourteen years of age are being deported to Germany. After the Sunday services these young people are arrested at the church door and sent off; a transport leaves every week.

. . Nothing certain is known of the fate of Canon Schulz of Bydgoszcz; probably he has been shot, and Canon Casimir Stepczynski as well. The Lazarist Fathers Wiorek and Szarek have been shot, while their confreres are in prison; soldiers are indulging in orgies in the church, which was closed under the pretext that the dome was unsafe. The priests of the deanery of Gniewkowo were all taken to prison and nothing more is known of them. Fr. Skrzypczak was killed by blows of a rifle. The parish priest, Fr. Domachowski, was imprisoned and obliged to repair a bridge, standing up to his waist in water.

. . Fr. Klein of Chometowo was imprisoned and forced to break stones on the streets. Fr. Janke of Jaktorowo has been shot. All the priests of Kcynia have been deported; the church there has been closed for two months. Fr. Romoald Soltysinski of Rzadkwin has died in prison. At Strzelno eighteen priests were put in prison, some of whom were later released, others deported. Fr. Cichowski of Sololniki has been in prison from the beginning and nothing is known of his fate. Fr. Namyslowski was beaten; they tried to force him by inhuman torture to profane the cross; he was taken to Wrzesnia half dead, and nothing more has been heard of him. Fr. Smolinski of Morzewo was put in prison and forced to dig potatoes. At Naklo, the pastor, Fr. Geppert, and his assistants, Frs. Chojnacki and Domek, were put in prison and are probably at Buchenwald near Weimar; their church is closed and ecclesiastical funds confiscated. Fr. Chojnacki has been forced to transport coal through the streets of Naklo. Fr. Koncewicz, at first in prison at Gniezno, was later deported to Germany. Canon Schwarz, at first in prison, has now been interned. Mgr. Schvenborn is in prison. Fr. Lewicki of Goscieszyn was shot. The interned priests of the deanery of Trzemeszno were compelled to tear down a synagogue. For the past two months Mass was no longer celebrated in the District of Znin; all the priests are under arrest; the administration of the Sacraments is forbidden. Fr. Zeno Niziolkiewicz has been shot. At present the priests of Znin are forced to break stones on the streets."

Report of Dec. 10, 1939.

 . . The Gestapo rages especially against Catholic Action, all of whose funds they have confiscated. The national president and its officials are in prison.

"Crucifixes and statues which lined the roads and had given the country a Catholic character have been destroyed; even the holy figures of saints that were on the houses or in the gardens have been destroyed. In one district candles were confiscated from the churches.

. . The primatial palace of Poznan has been completely ruined, the pious objects of devotion destroyed, decorations torn down, furniture broken. They carried off the linen, wine, and paintings; they burnt records and books."

Diocese of Chelmno —Incorporated in the Reich.

. . The ancient Cathedral, a veritable jewel of Gothic art, was first closed and then made into a garage, and it is now proposed to turn it into a market-hall. The statue of the Immaculate Virgin, erected in front of the Cathedral in 1854 to commemorate the promulgation of the Dogma, has been overthrown.

"The bishop's palace was entered and despoiled of all its treasures, works of art and furniture. The valuable library, containing about twenty thousand volumes, was pillaged. The diocesan park was laid waste. Shortly afterwards the bishop's palace was turned into a hotel, its beautiful chapel being used as a ball-room.

"The seminaries, large and small, with the college and the secondary school, are occupied by the German army. All the teachers have been driven out. The seminary cellars have been for several weeks the scene of tortures inflicted on both priests and Catholic laymen.

"Of the 650 priests devoted to the cure of souls in the schools and in the Catholic Action, only some twenty have been left. The others were imprisoned or deported, or forced to perform exhausting and humiliating labour, at which some died of fatigue.

"Those priests who worked in the Catholic Youth associations had most to suffer.

"It is not known where the majority of the clergy are detained, as the German authorities keep it a secret. It seems likely, however, that a large number are imprisoned in the concentration camp at Gorna Grupa, and the rest in that of Kazimierz Biskupi, or at Stuthof near Danzig, if not in other concentration camps in Germany. Some, however, were sent to the area of the Government General.

"It is stated that a large number of priests have been shot, but neither the number nor the details are as yet known, as the occupation authorities maintain an obstinate silence on the subject. .

 . . The flourishing religious life of the diocese has been almost entirely suppressed. The churches have almost all been closed and confiscated by the Gestapo, which removes the pictures and other objects of value. Scarcely thirty churches are open for just two hours on Sundays. There is a little more liberty allowed in the city of Torun, where singing during divine service is permitted.

"... All the crosses and sacred emblems by the road-sides have been destroyed. At Gdynia the Germans publicly overthrew the great cross which stood before the Church of the Holy Virgin, and covered it with filth.

. . The great cross standing on Kamienna Gora, which used to be illuminated at night and venerated from afar by mariners at sea as a religious greeting of a Catholic Gdynia, was also overthrown.

. . 95 per cent of the priests have been imprisoned, expelled, or humiliated before the eyes of the faithful. The Curia no longer exists ; the Cathedral has been made into a garage as at Pelplin; the bishop's palace into a restaurant; the chapel into a ball -room. Hundreds of churches have been closed. The whole patrimony of the Church has been confiscated, and the most eminent Catholics executed."

Diocese of Katowice— Incorporated in the Reich.

. . The treatment inflicted on certain priests in prison has been outrageous. For example, Fr. Kupilas, parish priest of Ledziny, was shut up for three days in the confessional of the church at Bierun, where 300 men and women were imprisoned at the same time without anything to eat and without being allowed to go out to satisfy their natural needs. Fr. Wycislik, vicar of Zyglin, was arrested and beaten in the streets of Tarnowskie Gory until the blood ran, and kicked and even trampled until he lost consciousness. Curate Budny had his sides pierced by numerous bayonet stabs, because the German authorities had ordered him to hold his hands up, and after a certain time he was unable through fatigue to do so any longer.

Original from UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

The Nazi War Against The Catholic Church. Persecution In Europe Part 1.

Adolf Wagner

We began our fight with political Catholicism in March 1933," shouted Minister of State Adolf Wagner in March of 1938. "The time has now come to continue this fight. Away with political priests! Down with political Catholicism !"

"I am absolutely clear in my own mind," Reich Leader Alfred Rosenberg echoed, "and I think I can speak for the Fuhrer as well, that both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Confessional Church, as they exist at present, must vanish from the life of our people."

Speech was soon turned into action in a series of assaults upon the persons of churchmen of high position. Victims of physical violence, in the space of a few months only, were Bishop Sproll of Rothenburg, thrice attacked, Cardinal von Faulhaber of Munich, twice attacked, and Cardinal Innitzer of Vienna, also subjected to two attacks. The attacks on Cardinal Innitzer are typical of the general methods employed by the Nazis. A description of one of these we quote from the Osservatore Romano of October 15, 1938.

"On Friday, October 7, a service for Catholic youth took place in St. Stephen's Cathedral . . . The Hitler Youth and the SA had gathered there too and started counter-shouts and whistlings: 'Down with Innitzer! Our faith is Germany' . . . Bands of SA men gathered together in front of the Bishop's residence and staged noisy demonstrations with the shout that the Cardinal should be taken to Dachau . . .

"The next day, Saturday, October 8, at 8:15 in the evening, the demonstrations started again from all sides, including the Rothenturmstrasse, so that the residence was entirely surrounded. Stones came from all directions, and all the windows were broken. Again and again the police were asked for assistance, as the demonstrators were endeavoring to break in, and several police stations promised to give aid. In spite of this, however, the heavy door was broken a quarter of an hour later and a disorderly crowd poured in, destroying everything they came across in the antechambers and on the staircase. The inmates of the residence hurried towards the chapel to the Cardinal's protection.

It was feared that the Blessed Sacrament would be the object of a sacrilege and a priest consumed the Sacred Hosts— and indeed it was high time, for the intruders had reached the episcopal chapel, struck a secretary of the Cardinal unconscious, destroyed the statue of a saint and, pursuing their vandalism, stormed the study of the Cardinal, where they broke open a writing table and smashed a crucifix. The purple pectoral cross and ring of the Cardinal were stolen, and everywhere the furniture was smashed, pictures slashed and objects of art demolished . . .

"The crowd had insulted the Cardinal in a most violent and vulgar way. His life had, indeed, been saved, but in another house of the Cathedral Curia very brutal things had occurred. The house was first thoroughly damaged and then a curate, Fr. Kravarnik, was taken and thrown out of a window. He was seriously injured, and it is said that both his legs were broken so that his life is in danger.

"Outside on the square the Cardinal's purple mantle, some articles of personal use, furniture, carpets, etc., were burnt. The outrages were not reported in any of the Vienna newspapers."

At the close of the year, the Pope again protested against the violence of the Nazis, in language recalling Nero and Judas the Betrayer, comparing Hitler with Julian the Apostate. The Supreme Pontiff decried in particular efforts being made in Berlin to represent the recent occurrences in Vienna so as to make the assaulted Catholics appear as almost the authors of the aggression.

On January 30, 1939, Hitler celebrated the sixth anniversary of his accession to the dictatorship of the Reich, in one of his lengthier speeches. Despite the record of those six years, he protested that: "Among the outcries against Germany raised today in the so-called democracies is the assertion that National Socialist Germany is an anti-religious State." To counter these outcries, he baldly asserted that, "No one in Germany has hitherto been persecuted for his religious views, nor will anybody be persecuted on that account." Then he continued, "But the National Socialist State will ruthlessly make clear to those clergy who, instead of being God's ministers, regard it as their mission to speak insultingly of our present Reich, its organization or its leaders, that no one will tolerate a destruction of the State and that a clergy that places itself beyond the pale of the law will be called to account before the law like any other German citizen."

On February 10, the Holy Father died. Three weeks later, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, Papal Secretary of State, was elected Pope, taking the name of Pius XII.

In the time of Pope Pius XI, the Nazi attack on Christianity was in the main confined to the German lands. His successor has been confronted by an assault upon the Church which has extended itself ever more widely over Europe, following step by step the Nazi military conquest of other peoples.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

On October 1, 1938, Nazi armed forces crossed the frontiers of Czechoslovakia. Persecution of the Catholic clergy in the Sudetenland began, according to plan, almost at once.

Czech priests who for years had ministered to both Czechs and Germans in the Sudeten district were robbed of their property and were expelled by the Nazis. Those remaining were deprived of all financial support and forced to do manual labor. All private schools were closed. Religious instruction was forbidden in state schools. Religious orders were suppressed.

Hitler's armies marched into Prague on March 15, 1939. The provinces of Bohemia and Moravia were made into a Protectorate of the Reich. The "protection" immediately took an accustomed form. Within a month of the occupation, Nazi police had arrested various representatives of the Catholic church. Gestapo agents went into churches to supervise sermons. Hundreds of priests were denounced, hailed to the headquarters of the secret political police, and tortured.

In June 1939, Corpus Christi processions were forbidden in many districts. Monasteries and convents were requisitioned, and monks were humiliated and imprisoned.

Later in the year, after war had broken out, the persecutions were extended. In September, the Gestapo arrested four-hundred eighty-seven priests in the occupied territory of Czechoslovakia. These included Mgr. Stasek, Canon of Vysehrad in Prague and Mgr. Tenora, Dean of the Cathedral in Brno. They were taken to prison and later to concentration camps. Six directors of Catholic charities were seized, including the well-known leader, Mgr. Stanovsky.

Shortly after the occupation of Prague, Carlo Cardinal Kaspar, Archbishop of Prague and Primate of Bohemia, was arrested for refusal to obey the Nazis' order that he instruct priests to discontinue pilgrimages to shrines and holy places. He was reported, re-arrested in July, and again in September 1940, when he again refused to obey this order. He died the following year, it is said of grief over the fate of his country and faith, and as a consequence of treatment received at the hands of the Nazis.

On October 28, 1940, it was reported that priests were being forced to present their sermons in advance to the Gestapo, and that they were compelled to deliver them from the pulpit with the corrections made by the Nazis, on pain of imprisonment. Priests also are reported to have been instructed to use the Bible "only so far as its guidance is not contrary to Nazi aims."

was suppressed by the occupying power. Teachers of religion were driven from the schools. The theological faculties of Prague and Olmutz, and religious seminaries in all episcopal seats in the provinces were closed immediately after the occupation. The property of most monasteries and convents was confiscated. German administrators were installed in other Church properties. Monks and nuns were driven from secular hospitals where they had worked as attendants, nurses and physicians. Several hospitals maintained by religious orders were closed.

Early in September 1940, all Catholic associations in the Protectorate were dissolved. The Catholic press came under stricter supervision, and many individual publications were suppressed. In general, all were compelled to publish articles supplied by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry.

The Pope's Encyclical Summi Pontificatus was confiscated in the mail.
And all this was accompanied by the constant pressure of physical violence.

Reliable Czech eye-witnesses report that when the Canons of Brno Cathedral arrived at Spielberg fortress for internment, S. S. guards seized them and dragged them to the chapel. There, one priest was forced into the pulpit and compelled to read aloud a sacrilegious address. The older priests were made to dance around the altar holding torn-down crucifixes.

Again, at a Catholic festival at Bohdance, on June 15, 1941, the procession was kneeling before the altar in the open. Nazis threw themselves upon the procession, which consisted largely of women, girls and children. They knocked down and trampled the participants, particularly the girls in their white ceremonial dresses. When the priests led the procession back into the church, the Nazis stood outside, singing "Wir marschier-en in die ganze Welt." The priest was arrested and interned.

Catholics at church and attending pilgrimages to the shrine of Stara Boleslav found that Gestapo agents were mingling with them. Hundreds were denounced. Priests were arrested.

Finally pilgrimages were forbidden altogether. The last one took place at Domazlece, where the priest managed to finish his sermon, to an immense congregation, just before being arrested.

POLAND

At dawn on September 1, 1939, Nazi Panzer divisions attacked Poland. The assault upon the Catholic faithful of Poland followed quick upon the invasion of the Polish soil. An official account of these persecutions has been submitted to the Vatican by Cardinal Hlond, Primate of Poland.

We quote a partial selection of these reports:

Excerpts from the Reports of Cardinal Hlond

Archdiocese of Gniezno —"The archiepiscopal seminary of philosophy at Gniezno was taken over by the soldiers. A German general has taken the archiepiscopal palace as his quarters. The homes of the expelled Canons, as likewise the dwelling places of the lower clergy of the Basilica, have been occupied by the Germans . . . The principal parish church, that of the Holy Trinity, was profaned, the parish house invaded, and the entire belongings were stolen.

"Many priests are imprisoned, suffering humiliations, blows, maltreatment. A certain number were deported to Germany . . . Others have been detained in concentration camps . . . Imprisonment and arrest were carried out in such circumstances that priests did not even have the opportunity either of consuming or of placing the Blessed Sacrament in a place secure from profanation ... In the camp of Gorna Grupa they have been frequently maltreated. It is not rare to see a priest in the midst of labour gangs working in the fields, repairing roads and bridges, drawing wagons of coal, at work in the sugar factories, and even engaged in demolishing the synagogues. Some of them have been shut up for the night in pigsties, barbarously beaten and subjected to other tortures.

"At Bydgoszcz, in September (1939), about 5,000 men were imprisoned in a stable, in which there was not even room to sit on the ground. A corner of the stable had been designated as the place for the necessities of nature. The Canon Casimir Stepczynski, rural dean and parish priest of the place, was obliged, in company with a Jew, to carry away in his hands the human excrement, a nauseating task  . . The curate, Adam Musial, who wished to take the place of the venerable priest, was brutally beaten with a rifle-butt.

"The Rev. Anthony Bobrzynski, curate at Znin, was arrested on the street while, vested in surplice and stole, he was carrying the Viaticum to a dying person. The sacred vestments were torn from his back, the Blessed Sacrament was profaned, and the unfortunate priest was dragged at once to prison.

"Those churches which still have the ministrations of priests are permitted to be open only on Sunday, and then only from nine to eleven o'clock in the morning . . . Sermons are allowed to be preached only in German, but since these serve often as a pretext for the Germans to carry off the priests to prison there is scarcely any preaching. Church hymns in Polish have been forbidden . .. Marriages are not being celebrated, as it is severely forbidden to bless a marriage which has not already been contracted before an official of the civil government. The latter, as a matter of principle, does not admit marriages between Poles. In various places the priests are interned in their own homes, and cannot bring the last sacraments to the dying.

"The crucifixes were removed from the schools. No religious instruction is being imparted. It is forbidden to collect offerings in the churches for the purpose of worship. The priests are being compelled to recite publicly a prayer for Hitler after the Sunday Mass.

". . . The Catholic Action, so flourishing but six months ago, has been proscribed . . . Catholic societies of charity, the Ladies of Charity, the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, the pious foundations, have been dissolved, and their funds confiscated.

"From the time of the entrance of the German troops into these regions, numerous crucifixes, busts and statues of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin and of the Saints that adorned the streets were battered to the ground. The artistic statues of the patron saints, placed in the squares of the cities, and even the pictures and sacred monuments on houses and on private grounds, met with the same fate.

"A repugnant scene took place at the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of Bydgoszcz. The Gestapo invaded the papal cloister, and summoned the nuns to the chapel, where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed. One of the police ascended the pulpit and cried that the nuns were wasting their time praying, because 'God does not exist, for if there were a God, we would not be here.' The nuns, with the exception of the Superioress, who was gravely ill, were conducted outside of the cloister, and shut up for twenty-four hours in the cellars of the Passtelle (passport office). Meanwhile the Gestapo searched the convent, and one of the policemen carried to the Superioress, confined to bed in her cell, the ciborium that had been taken out of the tabernacle. He commanded her to consume the consecrated hosts, crying: 'Auffressen!* (Eat them up). The unfortunate nun carried out the command, but at one point asked for water, which was refused. With an effort the nun managed to consume all the sacred species, and thus save them from further profanation."

Archdiocese of Poznan —"The Curia and the Metropolitan Court, whether of first or second instance, for Cracow, Lwow and Wloclawek are closed and in the hands of the Gestapo, who are making a study of the records. The archiepis-copal palace was invaded by soldiers who have remained there for weeks ruining its fittings. The records of the Primatial Chancellory have been and still are being carefully examined by the Gestapo, who also raided the important archiepiscopal archives.

.. The Cathedral of Poznan, which is at the same time parish church of 14,000 souls, was closed by the police under the pretext of being unsafe for use. The keys are in the hands of the Gestapo. The most beautiful of Poznan's churches, the Collegiate Church of St. Mary Magdalene, a parish of 23,000 souls, has likewise been closed.

. . The Theological Seminary, which numbered 120 students in the four-year course, was closed by the German authorities in October and the buildings were given over to a school for policemen. The land belonging to the Seminary, about 1,700 hectares, has been given to the confidence agents to be exploited by them.

Original from UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN