CNA Staff, Apr 29, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).
Catholics in Poland are commemorating the fifth of the country’s diocesan priests who were murdered in World War II as they mark the Day of Martyrdom of the Polish Clergy.
Around 2,000 of Poland’s 10,000 diocesan priests perished during the Nazi German occupation. They are among those remembered on April 29, the day of commemoration of martyred clergy, instituted by the Polish bishops.
Bishop Grzegorz Suchodolski of Siedlce was due to preside at a live-streamed Mass marking the day at the National Shrine of St. Joseph in Kalisz, central Poland, at noon local time.
April 29 is the day on which the U.S. Army liberated the Dachau concentration camp in 1945.
The Tablet April 29, 2021
The watchtower and barbed wire fence are seen at the memorial site of the former Nazi concentration camp, Dachau. (Photo: CNS/KNA)
WINDSOR TERRACE April 29 marks the day Polish Catholics solemnly remember when nearly 2,000 of the country’s 10,000 diocesan priests perished during the Nazi German occupation in World War II. The day coincides with the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany.
“The number of Polish priests murdered there exceeded all other victims from the clergy of other European countries,” said Jan Żaryn, director of the Institute for the Heritage of National Thought in Poland.