Henryk Maria Malak (1912–1987) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest who was incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

Biography

Malak was born November 1, 1912, in the village of

Sadki, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Sadki is a village in Nakło County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Sadki. It lies approximately west of Nakło nad Notecią and west of Bydgoszcz. ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, completed secondary school in May 1932 and was accepted at the Archdiocesan Seminary in Gniezno. He completed his theological studies at the seminary in

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...

and was ordained a priest at the Poznań Cathedral on June 11, 1938. Fr. Malak served for a time in the town of

Września Września (german: Wreschen) is a town in west-central Poland with 28,600 inhabitants (1995). It is situated in the Września County, Greater Poland Voivodeship (since 1999), previously in Poznań Voivodeship (1975–1998), on the Wrześnica Riv ...

then became a vicar of the St. Joseph Parish in Inowrocław. Two months after the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Fr. Malak and Catholic priests throughout the region were arrested by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

Concentration camps

Fr. Malak spent the next six years in Nazi concentration camps. He was initially in

Stutthof Stutthof was a Nazi concentration camp established by Nazi Germany in a secluded, marshy, and wooded area near the village of Stutthof (now Sztutowo) 34 km (21 mi) east of the city of Danzig (Gdańsk) in the territory of the German-a ...

and Grenzdorf in Poland, then

Sachsenhausen Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...

and

Dachau , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

in Germany. He spent the last four years in Dachau until he was liberated by the U.S. Army in 1945. After liberation, he served as a pastor in Germany, ministering to displaced Polish refugees until emigrating to the United States in 1950.

In the United States

In the United States, Malak's activities included work as an editor of articles and pamphlets in English and Polish at the Franciscan Publishers in Pulaski, Wisconsin. He also provided spiritual guidance to the regions Polish emigre community through sermons and the organization of religious retreats. In 1960, Fr. Malak began research on Mother Mary Theresa Dudzik, a Polish nun who founded the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago in 1894, an order devoted to the care of the elderly and the poor. He was appointed

postulator A postulator is the person who guides a cause for beatification or canonization through the judicial processes required by the Roman Catholic Church. The qualifications, role and function of the postulator are spelled out in the ''Norms to be Obse ...

for her cause in 1963. Fr. Malak`s research on Mother Mary Theresa's life and virtues resulted in two books and a pamphlet. Cardinal John Cody initiated a tribunal in 1979 to study her cause and appointed Malak as consultant.

Death

Malak died on July 19, 1987, at the infirmary of the Franciscan Sisters in Lemont, Illinois. Malak's obituary was published in the ''Chicago Tribune'' on July 21, 1987.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Malak, Henryk 1987 deaths 20th-century Polish Roman Catholic priests Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church 1912 births