DOMINICAN BLESSED-WWII

 

BLESSED MARIA JULIA  (nee Stanislawa) RODZINSKA, OP was born on 16 March 1899 in Nawojowa, Poland. She was one of five children of  Michał and Marianna (Sekuła).  Michal was an organist for the parish church, a talented composer and man-of-all-trades who took on various jobs to make ends meet. His wife Marianna helped where she could, but a long-term illness took her life when Stanislawa was only 8 years old. Times must have been tough for the whole family(two boys and two girl), as Michal battled rheumatism in his fight to provide for his children. Two years later, Michal died, leaving Stanislawa and her 3 siblings orphans.

At the age of ten the future blessed and her four year old sister became wards of the Dominican Sisters in Nawojowa.  The two boys were taken in by relatives.

 After finishing school there, she started studies in the Teachers' Seminar in Nowy Sącz, but didn't complete them because she began her religious formation in Wielowieś, entering the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Dominika in Tarnobrzeg-Wielowieś. After her vows in 1924 she completed her interrupted education.

 As a qualified teacher, she carried out her ministry in Mielżyn, Rawa Ruska and Vilnius (now Lithuania) for 22 years.

 From 1934, she was the superior of the house in Vilnius, also running an orphanage. As a teacher, she knew how to motivate her class and strengthen her weaker students.  To her, it was particularly important to impart to them a love for the Rosary and the Eucharist. 

After the outbreak of World War II, she secretly taught Polish language, history and religion, and conducted humanitarian activities.

She also assisted the archbishop in saving Jews from capture by the Gestapo and provided for retired priests who otherwise would have been left impoverished.

 On 12 July 1943, Sister Julia was jailed by the Gestapo in Łukiszki prison in Vilnius. In a year, she was sent to the German concentration camp Stutthof, registered as number 40992. There she was subjected to torture, isolation and humiliation.

 Sr. Julia was assigned to the Jewish part of the Stutthof, where conditions were particularly cruel.  Although such activities were forbidden, she led prayer groups and even arranged for a priest prisoner to come on a “work assignment” to hear Confessions.

 Due to the inhumane conditions of concentration camps, prisoners often lost their sense of morality for the sake of their own survival.  However, Sr. Julia jeopardized her own life to show mercy to her fellow prisoners in the dark and tormenting cruelty of Stutthof. 

 When the typhus epidemic came to Stuthoff in November of 1944, Sr. Julia would go to the bedside of the sick and give what comfort and treatment she could.  Fellow prisoners testify that she was a source of strength for them by her example of piety and charity. 

 Sister Julia died of exhaustion and disease on 20 February 1945 in Stutthof, two months before the concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army. Her naked body was discarded on a pile of corpses, but someone honored her by placing a little cloth over her body. The words of those who survived Bl. Julia perhaps tell it best: “Not only Catholic compatriots mourned her death, but also Russians, Latvians, and others.” The Jewish women did not hesitate to call Sr. Julia a martyr and a saint. “She gave her life for others, died sacrificing herself; she was the Angel of goodness.”

 In 1999, she was proclaimed blessed by Pope St. John Paul II in the group of 108 Blessed Martyrs. Her feast is February 20.