ANGEL OF AUSCHWITZ

 

SERVANT OF GOD STEFANIA LACKA (pronounced “Wonska”) was born on Jan. 6, 1914, in Wola Żelichowska, a village in southern Poland to a devout, peasant family.  From a very young age she experienced a deep faith. Every day she found a moment during the long days of work in the fields to take refuge in the church and pray.

At the parish, she took the opportunity to read, because the parish priest opened his doors to anyone who wanted to read in his extensive library.   She attended a teacher-training institution, graduating in 1933.

 

From 1934 to 1939, she worked for Nasza Sprawa (“Our Case”), the Catholic weekly publication of the Diocese of Tarnów, writing 700 articles and editing the children’s supplement Króluj nam Chryste (“Christ, reign over us”). 

After the Nazi German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, the editorial team offered its skills to the Polish underground movement. The Gestapo arrested Stefania and other members of the team on April 16, 1941. 

 She was held at the Gestapo headquarters in Tarnów and later at the local prison. She was interrogated and tortured, but did not reveal the names of any of her associates.

 She was transported on April 27, 1942, with 60 other female prisoners to Auschwitz, where she was assigned the number 6886.

 In June 1942, a female prisoner escaped the camp. The authorities forced the prisoners to stand in the roll-call square for two days waiting to discover who would be killed in retribution for the escape.

 Bishop Jeż’s edict, dated July 26 but reported on the diocesan website on Aug. 8, said that Stefania was standing beside her friend, Helena Panek, as they awaited their fate. Stefania promised that if Helen was selected then she would go to her death with her. But the authorities were ordered not to proceed with their planned punishment. In spite of torture and dire living conditions, she refused to lose her humanity and encouraged other women

While caring for the sick Stefania fell ill with typhus and was admitted to the camp hospital in block 23. She recovered by the spring of 1943 and began working in the camp hospital as a nurse. Using her proficiency in German enabled her to gain access to some documents.

 Even though she knew it would cost her life if she was discovered, she altered data to get some people off the lists of those condemned to the gas chambers or to receive a lethal injection. She also wrote letters to the families of prisoners, and shared the power of prayer with everyone she could.

When she was unable to save babies condemned to the gas chamber along with their mothers, Stefania didn’t hesitate to baptize them in secret. 

“Risking her own life, she baptized newborns and ministered to people who were seriously ill,” Bishop Jeż noted in the edict. “She also watched over the dying, sweetening their last hours of life.” She encouraged other female prisoners to pray together with the dying.  Her fellow prisoners called her the ‘earthly guardian angel.'”

 She wrote a camp prayer book that survived the Second World War intact.

Stefania left Auschwitz with five companions on Jan. 23, 1945, days after the camp was bombed. She returned to her family home in Wola Żelichowska, where she attended daily Mass and helped her family.

 She began studying Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, but her health deteriorated and she was admitted to a hospital in the city in October 1946. She died on Nov. 7, 1946, at the age of 33 of tuberculosis

 In his edict, Bishop Jeż said that Stefania ’s spirituality offered an example for Christians today.“Stefania Lacka was distinguished for her high degree of the virtues of faith, hope, love, and moral virtues. From the day of her funeral to the present, her private cult has been growing.

At the Basilica of Our Lady of Consolation in Pasierbiec, a village near Krakow, in 2010 the people dedicated the outdoor Stations of the Cross with figures from recent Polish Catholic history. At the the Eighth Station, where Jesus speaks to the women,  He greets Stanislawa Leszczynska, who delivered over 3,000 babies at Auschwitz and Servant of God Stefania Lacka.