During the Second World War, the German Army and SS committed scores of atrocities and
war crimes, and still today many of them are being uncovered.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians were cast into the firing line as the deadliest war
in History came to their doorsteps, and inside of occupied lands many were executed by the
Nazi death squads.
Inside of Poland, the Einsatzgruppen caused chaos executing large swathes of the population
in huge massacres, and often many of those who were killed were very religious and they
had no right to have been slaughtered in the manner that they were.
One woman and nun who was brutally executed by the Germans was Alicja Kotowska, who was
brutally slain in a horrific massacre performed by the Germans in 1939 in Piasnica.
But what is the story of her life and also needless and cruel death.
Join us as we find out and remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Born Maria Jadwiga Kotowska on the 20th November 1899, her family were linked to the church.
Her father was an organist in the local church, and he was a very pious man who never left
the house without his rosary beads, and he also prayed regularly.
He would read the scripture to his children including Maria.
She was sent to a boarding school in Warsaw with her older sister and Maria would study
and be taught by nuns inside of the religious school.
Whilst the First World War broke out, she spent the whole of the war there and in 1918
she passed her secondary school leaving examination, and then in the same year she began to study
medicine at the University of Warsaw.
On the 10th November 1918, she persuaded a group of friends and students to miss lectures,
and there they went to the train station.
Following this, the very religious Maria then joined a Polish military organisation.
In 1920, the Bolshevik Army was approaching Warsaw, and she then rushed to the front lines,
and she helped wounded soldiers and officers serving as a Red Cross nurse.
She also worked in a number of Warsaw hospitals, and would later be awarded in 1932 the Polonia
Restituta Cross for her heroic service in helping wounded soldiers.
But despite serving in a military capacity, as well as studying she met the Congregation
of the Sisters of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a group of nuns.
The seat of their congregation was close to where Maria was studying, and during her third
year Maria would pause her studies and she joined the congregation.
Her parents were shocked that she wanted to become a nun, but they accepted this and thought
it was a good path for their daughter to follow.
In 1922, Maria began her life in the religious house of the Resurrectionists in Poland, and
she took the religious name Alicja.
Two years later, she made her first vows and came back to the Warsaw community.
She also resumed her studies at university, but instead switched to learning about natural
sciences and mathematics.
She continued her studies and hen became a teacher, and she taught Chemistry whilst also
working as a nurse.
She became a certified high school teacher, and in 1934 was appointed the director of
the Private Primary School and the Girl’s Secondary School in Wejherowo which was struggling
with money.
She was also trusted with the management of a kindergarten, and also a boarding school
for girls.
Maria managed to turn everything around, and the school began to become very successful.
In the summer of 1939, she would visit her parents for the final time, and on the way
back she stayed at another nunnery, before she returned to the seaside.
However in September 1939, the Second World War would break out, and the Nazis invaded
Poland.
As soon as the Germans occupied the country.
Maria would make the decision to try and protect the women and girls living inside of the houses
she was looking after.
She knew that eventually she would be persecuted, and the School and the Institution of the
Resurrection Sisters was shut down.
She ordered her fellow sisters to change into civilian clothes and to hide, but many of
the sisters did not listen.
The mother of one of the students, found that Maria was threatened by the Gestapo with arrest,
and she offered to help her escape.
But this was not taken advantage of, and in October 1939, Maria was arrested by the Gestapo.
A German Wehrmacht captain, then requisitioned and took control of the monastery building,
and he asked the Gestapo what Maria had done which was offensive.
The Gestapo replied, ‘It is enough that she is Polish.’
However the other sisters and nuns offered themselves for Maria’s life, and they asked
if they could give their own lives for Maria, but this was not enough, and they wanted to
be with Maria, but the Germans would not allow it.
The Gestapo would sickeningly say that Sister Alicia or Maria was being cared for well,
but this was not the case.
She was held inside of a Gestapo prison, and there were many efforts made to get her out,
and two schoolgirls visited and they tried to get her out.
Maria sent her greetings to the other nuns, and said she was doing well, and she asked
for her favourite cross, and she would spend much of her prison time praying heavily.
However on the 11th November 1939, Nazi trucks entered the prison yard.
A large group of prisoners including Maria were dragged from their cells, and thrown
into the trucks.
The Germans ordered them to empty their pockets, and they were then placed onto the vehicles.
Maria went onto them last, and she comforted a number of frightened Jewish children who
were in her group which were deported.
She gave them a huge amount of comfort, however she would then be taken to her death site.
The Nazis during the Autumn of 1939 and Spring of 1930 in Wilderness near Wejherowo committed
scores of massacres, and it’s estimated in these killings that 14,000 people were
killed.
Piasnica was the largest site of the killings of Polish civilians in Pomerania, and the
small village would be turned into a horrific site of execution.
The forests here were chosen by the Germans as a site of mass killing as it was easily
accessible by bus or truck.
It was also close to a railway line, and the victims were taken to the execution sites.
They were forced to strip and on some occasions dig their own graves.
They were then lined up on the edge of the ditches they had dug and they were shot by
machine guns, or rifles and pistols by a group of German executioners.
Some who were wounded were later finished off with bayonets or blows from the rifle
butts, and many suffered broken skulls.
Witnesses would say that prior to the executions, the victims were tortured and children were
treated with disgusting cruelty, and many had their heads smashed against the nearby
trees by the SS soldiers.
It was on the 11th November 1939 that Maria Kotowska would be brutally executed.
On Polish Independence Day, the Germans would murder around 314 Polish and Jewish prisoners
in Piasnica, and according to former Gestapo officers, the executions that day lasted from
early morning until three in the afternoon.
Maria and other women were marched to their graves, and then in groups of 5 they were
shot.
Some of the victims its believed were buried alive.
Witnesses would say that Maria was still seen in her final moments comforting children,
and that she went to her death in the same manner, being brutally shot by the Nazis.
Following the war, her corpse was not identified but a grave was found containing a rosary
of the same king worn by the sisters of her order.
This grave was then made a memorial site.
In 1944, the Germans dug up most of the bodies, and then using the prisoners of Stutthof concentration
camp, these were burned.
Pope Pius XII would hear about the death of Maria, and he said ‘You have a martyr, this
is great glory and consolation for the Congregation.
Can there be a greater happiness than to give your life for the faith, for the Church, for
Christ the Lord?’
She was canonised in June 1999 in Warsaw, and she became one of the 108 Blessed Polish
Martyrs of World War 2.
But Maria Kotowska, or Sister Alicja Kotowska was a woman who gave her life to help others,
and she was a caring woman who had cared for many people.
She was a woman who was brutally executed by the Germans, and along with many other
innocent civilians she was slaughtered at the hands of one of the most evil regimes
in History.
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