Blessed Jan Świerc and 8 Companions

Jan Świerc and his eight companions were priests of the Salesian Society who fell victim to the Nazi persecution unleashed against the Catholic Church after the German occupation of Poland on 1 September 1939. Engaged in pastoral and educational work and remote from the political tensions of the time, they were arrested simply for being Catholic priests. Jan Świerc was born at Królewska, today Chorzów, on 29 April 1877, studied with the Salesians in Italy and was ordained at Turin in 1903; he directed several Salesian houses in Poland and on 8 July 1938 became director and parish priest of the house at Kraków, where he was a valued preacher. Arrested with his confreres by the Gestapo on 23 May 1941, he was beaten and tortured in the Montelupich prison, transferred to Auschwitz on 26 June and killed the next day.

Ignacy Antonowicz, born in 1890 and ordained at Rome in 1916, director of the Salesian theological studentate at Kraków, was arrested the same day and died at Auschwitz on 21 July 1941. Ignacy Dobiasz, born in 1880 and ordained in 1908, died there on 27 June. Karol Golda, born at Tychy in 1914, was ordained at Rome in 1938.