HOLY JESUIT AND HIS FAMILY

 As readers know I am very dedicated to Jesuit saints, having been educated by the Jesuits.  A new one for me is Jesuit novice TOMAS MUNK and his father FRANTISEK.

From 1939 to 1945 Hitler’s campaign to eradicate both the Jewish population of Europe and the non-Jewish people who opposed his assault on the Jews, an estimated 9 to 11 million people perished.

Hundreds of the non-Jewish victims of the Nazis were Catholic religious sisters and priests, religious priests and monks, as well as non-Catholic ministers who were targeted because of their influence. Among those victims were 152 Jesuits of many different nationalities who were executed, died in concentration camps or as a result of captivity. 

Frantisek was born in 1895 in Senec, Slovakia. Tomas Munk was born in Budapest on January 29, 1924, the first son of a Frantisek and Gizela. The Family Munk were Jewish converts to Catholicism in 1939. They were atheists  prior to their conversions.

In the mid-1930s, Tomas began having an interest in the Catholic faith.  He was baptized in 1939 in the city of Ruzomberok, Slovakia. Tomáš entered the Jesuit novitiate in Ružomberok in 1943.

Due to the Nazi ideology against Jewish people, the Munk family were captured by Nazis at the end of 1944. Frantisek and his wife Gizela, together with their sons Tomas and Juraj, were sent to a concentration camp. They were later separated and sent on three different trains to Germany. Gizela  and Juraj were deported to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. Tomáš and his father were sent to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen and were shot during a “death march” on April 22. Tomas was 21 years of age and Frantiske was 49.

Vatican Radio reported that on the night before his arrest, Tomas decided to offer his life to God for the salvation of his country.

  

In  2008 the Slovakian author, Ivan Petransky, wrote a book about Tomas life,  “A Life under a Star”.  The beatification cause for Tomas Munk and his father, Frantisek  was opened on Sept. 27, 2011 in the Slovakian city of Bratislava.