1st Class Relic of Saint Maximillian Kolbe, Martyred Saint of Auschwitz

Saint Maximilian Kolbe: 1st Class Relic

The Papal Artifacts’ Collection is primarily dedicated to artifacts connected to the papacy.  Individual popes, their biographies and multiple items belonging to them, including first and second class relics, make up the majority of this Collection.  But that isn’t all it is.

Father Kunst has a deep devotion to the saints as can be readily seen in viewing the Saints & Blesseds section of this site. We invite you to visit Papal History/Saints & Blesseds to view the many canonized and beatified men and women who make up this section of the Collection.

How does one come to have a first class relic of a saint who died a martyr’s death in Auschwitz?  Of all the relics in Father Kunst’s Collection, perhaps this one is the most incredible.  

This is a first-class relic, in the form of hairs from his head and beard, preserved without his knowledge by two friars at Niepolkalanow who served as barbers in his friary between 1930 and 1941.  Since his beatification in 1971, these relics have been distributed around the world for public veneration.

Second-class relics, such as his personal effects, clothing and liturgical vestments, are preserved in his monastery cell and in a chapel at Niepokalanow and may be viewed by the faithful who visit.

St. Maximilian Kolbe Document Authenticating the 1st Class Relic of Hair

Father Richard Kunst:

This document authenticates the 1st class relic of hairs from St. Maximilian Kolbe’s beard.  The barber, who shaved his beard, was supposed to burn the hair, but the fire went out, and as a result the barber kept these hairs.  They are now a 1st class relic of a martyred saint.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

About Saint Maximilian Kolbe:

The Franciscan friar, Maximilian Mary Kolbe,  died in the Auschwitz concentration camp on August 14, 1941.  Two weeks earlier, a prisoner had gone missing.  The commandant, Karl Fristsch, announced the penalty to the entire camp: ten men would die in the starvation bunker.  As his name was called, Franciszek Gajowniczek cried out, “My wife, my children!”    Father Maximilian stepped forward and offered to take his place.  He and the other nine men were tossed naked into a concrete hole in Building 13.

The camp prisoners waited to hear the howls of anguish coming from the bunker.  Instead, they heard feeble voices raised in prayer and hymns of praise.  Maximilian was encouraging the men.  A Pole assigned to serve at the bunker later told how at each inspection the priest was always in the middle of them, standing or kneeling in prayer.  After two weeks, only Maximilian remained alive.  When the SS men entered the cell, he offered his arm for their lethal injection.

One prisoner later said his death was “a shock filled with hope, bringing new life and strength…It was like a powerful shaft of light in the darkness of the camp.”  Maximilian is a patron of families, for he gave his life for the father of a family.  He is a patron of prisoners, for he gave hope to the condemned.  —Lisa Lickona, The Magnificat Year of Mercy Companion, page 320  Maximillian Kolbe died 75 years ago today, August 14, 1941.

St. Maximilian Kolbe

St. Maximilian Kolbe

Pope John Paul II in the Auschwitz cell of Maximillian Kolbe

Pope John Paul II & Franciszek Gajowniczek at the Canonization of Maximilian Kolbe, 1982