BROTHER MARTYRS

 

BLESSED STEFAN GRELEWSKI born in 1899 in Dwikozy, Swietokrzyskie, Poland was the older brother of Blessed Kazimierz Grelewski. He studied at the Progimnazjum in Sandomierz and Lubartów in Poland.

 Ordained in October 1921 as a priest in the archdiocese of Radom, Poland, he graduated with a doctorate in canon law in Strasbourg, France in 1924. He then was general secretary of the Christian Workers Union in Radom in 1925.

 Writer and journalist, he published in “Kurier Warszawski”, “Nation’s Word”, “Catholic Guide” and “Priestly Athenaeum.” He founded the magazine Catholic Truth. He is the author of the book “Confessions and Religious Sects in Contemporary Poland”.and translated works from French and German to Polish.

He was prefect of a boy‘s elementary school from 1928 through 1931 and  of the Jan Kochanowski state boy‘s grammar school from 1932 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

He worked with the people of Catholic Action and the Association of Polish Intelligence, and helped organize the first diocesan Eucharistic Congress in Radom in 1933.

 During World War II, together with his brother Blessed Kazimierz (nine years younger) he taught religion in secret. Both were arrested in 1941as part of the Nazi persecutions and sent to concentration camps in Auschwitz and Dachau.

He died of starvation on 9 May 1941 in the camp hospital of Dachau. He was beatified with his brother in the group of 108 martyrs of World War II in 1999.

 

BLESSED KAZIMIERZ GRELEWSKI was the younger brother of Bl. Stefan. He was born 1907 in Dwikozy near Sandomierz. His parents were Michał and Eufrozyna née Jarzyna.

He graduated from primary school in the Wysokie Mountains and received his secondary school certificate after graduating from high school in Sandomierz. In 1923 he entered the Sandomierz Theological Seminary, and in August 1929 he was ordained a priest by Bishop Paweł Kubicki.

 He was head of the primary school, devoting thirteen years to this work, until his arrest in January 1941. During the war, he taught secret classes and conducted religion classes in public schools as well as devoting himself to charity work. He took care of an orphanage established for children - war victims. 

In January 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo along with his brother, Father  Stefan. He was taken to the prison on Kościuszki Street, where he was tortured,  transported to the prison in Skarżysko-Kamienna, and then by rail to the concentration camp in Oświęcim, where he received the number 10443.

In April 1941, he was transported to the Dachau camp (no. 25280), where he lost his brother. He then wrote to the family that Stefan died in his arms.

Witnesses of his anguish reported that one day in the Dachau camp "a kapo struck him and knocked him down to earth." Father Kazimierz rose, made a sign of the cross from the attacker and said: "God forgive you." After these words, the kapo attacked him, again  and shouted: "I will send you to your God in a moment." He  died on January 9, 1942 by hanging on the camp gallows, and at the last moment he called to the executioners: "Love God!