The Nuns of Warsaw Who Offered Their Lives

Thirty-Five Nuns

On 22 August 1944, an elderly Polish Benedictine Nun who was ill died as a consequence of the severe conditions her community was suffering under. Sister Maria Kazimiera Piotrowska was a member of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration in Warsaw, the community called the “Sakramentki”. Her community numbered about 47 members when she died. Nine days later, 34 of the remaining 46 would die together from the explosion of a bomb while all were adoring the Most Blessed Sacrament as a community. Sister Piotrowska was the first fruit of a willing harvest offered for the end of, and in reparation for, World War II, and for the salvation of Poland. At least 17 of the nuns who were killed on that day had previously made the offering of their lives for the cause of the Polish Fatherland. Each of these had approached her superior to ask for a blessing to offer the sacrifice of dying in union with the sacrifice of Jesus for Poland.

The Warsaw Uprising

1 August 1944, in the fifth year of the German occupation of Warsaw, was the begining of the August uprising in Warsaw. For the next month, the occupied Polish and the Germans fought, with the result that 80-90% of Warsaw was destroyed in a German victory. Many lives were brutally ended, and many of the most illustrious citizens gave up their lives for Warsaw and Poland. On 22 August, Warsaw’s Old Town, with all its monuments, was destroyed. Nothing remained but smoldering ruins.

The death toll was catastrophic. On the 25^th of August alone, as many as 40,000 civilians were killed. By the end of the uprising, 15,000 insurgents and 250,000 civilians had lost their lives, including the 35 nuns, as well as the 4 priests and about a thousand civilians that also died in the crypt of the Church of Saint Hyacinth, to which the nuns had fled for refuge.

Who Were the Nuns?

Our Sunday Visitor has recently posted about the 34 nuns who died on 31 August (the article does not mention the 35^th). In the article, Alina Petrowa-Wasilewicz described the composition of the group of 34 nuns.

By 1939, the convent was home to a remarkable group of women. Mother Tomea Koperska, the novice master, held a doctorate in philosophy and was an expert in St. Thomas Aquinas. Sister Anzelma Matuszczak studied Polish literature, and Magdalena Schmitz de Grollenbourg, the “funniest sister in the convent,” was a music conservatory graduate. The community also included noblewomen such as Mother Byszewska and Mother Celestyna Wielowieyska, as well as the daughters of farmers, craftsmen, townspeople and even a sister born out of wedlock.

Sister Klara Zdrojewska, who struggled with reading and writing, was a mystic whose counsel the superior always sought. Sister Ignacja Rejewska had converted from Calvinism, drawn to the sacrament of confession as a path to spiritual growth.

31 August 1944 Was a Thursday

The nuns were the daughters of the Most Blessed Sacrament, founded by Mother Mectilde de Bar and Queen Maria Casimir in 1688 in thanksgiving for the famous victory of King Jan Sobieski III in the Battle of Vienna on 12 September 1683. It was because of this victory of Pope Innocent extended the feast of the Holy name of Mary (12 September) to the Universal Church. The convent founded by Mother Mectilde is still thriving in Warsaw, although all but 12 of the sisters died in the bombing of 31 August, 1944.

For Mother Mectilde and the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration, each Thursday is the “Weekly Pascha” spent in adoration. How fitting that the day when their sacrifice was consummated was a Thursday!

A Sister’s Account

There is an account of this event from the website of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration of Warsaw here.

In this account, the author writes:

Fleeing to Saint Hyacinth

The Chaplain of the monastery, carrying the Most Blessed Sacrament, followed by Mother Prioress and the rest of the Sisters in small groups, made their way under the constant gunfire to the Church of Saint Hyacinth. This sorrowful procession reached the church’s undercroft, where the Sisters of Charity looked after us with true sisterly love. In the church — it had not yet been destroyed —the Sisters spent almost every minute in adoration of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament and at the tomb of Saint Andrew Bobola in the crypt. There remained still ten nuns in the ruins of the monastery, keeping guard over the furnishings of the church. The novices, together with their Mother Mistress, did not want to leave the enclosure, but religious obedience obliged them to join the rest of the community….

A Call to Reparation

Then, the role prepared for us in God’s eternal plan appeared clearly before our eyes. We saw that Divine Providence had gathered us all here and had formed our lives in view of REPARATION. Even amidst suffering and grief, and under the constant threat of death, the Sisters, sustained by grace, managed to keep calm and peaceful. To a great extent, we attributed this peace to the presence of four priests and the opportunity given us to participate daily in four Holy Masses.

One Sacrifice with Christ

Fortified by Holy Communion each day, we Sisters, fragile human beings, were able to forget ourselves. We united ourselves to Christ’s unbloody offering in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We meditated on His Passion, dwelling especially on His Agony in the Garden of Olives, and related it to all that was happening before our eyes. All of this raised our minds and hearts to the Pierced Heart of Jesus, there to find salvation, to obtain help, and to make reparation for the evil that was prevailing mightily all around us, and spreading everywhere more and more. Looking at the passing worth of all that was destroyed, and of the things in which modern man took pride, we were compelled to focus everything on God, Eternal and Unchanging.

The Fourth Vow

In addition to the three monastic vows, the Benedictine Nuns of Perpetual Adoration vow themselves to live in a state of victimhood, united to Jesus in the sacrificial offering of His death. The perpetual adoration brought them, through all these events, to a complete identification with Jesus who, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, remains forever the spotless Victim offered to God. One after another, Sisters — fully conscious of the significance and consequence of their act — sought the consent of the Prioress to offer themselves as sacrificial victims. Going before Christ, hidden in the Sacred Host, they offered themselves to the Justice of God in a sacrifice of reparation to obtain mercy for a tormented Poland.

Thursday, August 31, 1944

August 31, 1944 fell on a Thursday. For the Benedictine Nuns of Perpetual Adoration Thursday is the day beautiful above all others because, each week, it recalls the Institution of the Most Holy Eucharist. We prayed Vespers and Compline, as usual, at three o’clock in the afternoon, untroubled by the noise of the aeroplanes circling above us. In spite of the bombs that were falling, we began the verse, Keep us, Lord, as the apple of thine eye. Protect us under the shadow of thy wings (Psalm 16:8). Then came the wonderful prayer: Visit, we beseech Thee, O Lord, this dwelling . . .  and let Thy blessing be always upon us (Collect of Compline in the Monastic Breviary). The words flowed from deep inside us. Already our hearts were beating with a rhythm more of heaven than of earth. At the end, we sang the antiphon to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Hail Holy Queen . . . turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us. And after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Could there be a more beautiful prayer in preparation for death?

Then, even the aeroplanes seemed to be silent for a while. With profound interiority the Sisters put on their necks the ropes customarily worn during adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament. (By this practice, the Benedictine Nuns of Perpetual Adoration had, for over 250 years, signified their union with the Victim Christ in reparation for sin.) The Sisters gathered closely about the tabernacle. There was silence. Silence without so much as a whisper. Silence unbroken even by the murmur of prayer. After so much terror, uproar, and shattering violence there was nought but silence: a preparation for the eternal silence of heaven. It was a silence pregnant with anticipation. Then, all of a sudden, there was a terrible crashing sound followed by darkness. People were screaming. In a single moment the ceiling collapsed, crushing and killing the Sisters huddled close to the Most Blessed Sacrament, and with them 1000 civilians. At the same time the cellars of the monastery collapsed, burying four priests, and the rest of the Sisters and civilians beneath the rubble.

White Doves Fly into the Sky

According to a story recounted by inhabitants of Warsaw’s Old Town, shortly after the monastery church collapsed, a flock of white doves was seen flying out of the burning rubble towards heaven. That God allowed some to behold this sight is a mystery. What we do believe without any doubt is that the souls of our Sisters offered in sacrifice flew, pure and bright, straight to the throne of God.

The Names of the 35

1. Mother M. Tomea Koperska, Sub-Prioress and Mistress of Novices
2. Sister M. Klara Zdrojewska
3. Sister M. Innocenta Załuska
4. Sister M. Anna Kowalska
5. Sister M. Benedykta Kiliańska
6. Sister M. Teresa Tomaszewska
7. Sister M. Magdalena Schmitz de Grollenbourg
8. Sister M. Antonina Borkem
9. Sister M. Klemensa Rudnicka
10. Sister M. Alojza Tryc
11. Sister M. Gertruda Barejka
12. Sister M. Modesta Szkiłondz
13. Sister M. Czesława Turak
14. Sister M. Joachima Karcz
15. Sister M. Ignacja Rejewska
16. Sister M. Bernarda Marczuk
17. Sister M. Róża Karczewska
18. Sister M. Cecylia Miętkowska
19. Sister M. Agnieszka Tokarska
20. Sister M. Małgorzata Zalazek
21. Sister M. Jadwiga Puchała
22. Sister M. Flawia Polakowska
23. Sister M. Józefa Olędzka
24. Sister M. Władysława Pogonowska
25. Sister M. Anzelma Matuszczak
26. Sister M. Elżbieta Naruk
27. Sister M. Andrzeja Słowacka
28. Sister M. Stanisława Przemyska
29. Sister M. Augustyna Zalewska
30. Sister M. Kolumba Sumińska
31. Sister M. Katarzyna Kuźmińska
32. Sister M. Hilaria Kraków, novice
33. Sister M. Barbara Siwek, novice
34. Sister Janina Przykop, postulant
35. Sister M. Kazimiera Piotrowska, an elderly Sister who, being very ill, died on 22 August 1944 as a consequence of the severe conditions due to the continuous bombing of Warsaw’s Old Town.

And the four priests:

1. Father Józef Archutowski, prof.
2. Father Michał Rozwadowski, the monastery’s chaplain
3. Father Jan Mazerski, SDB
4. Father Leonard Hrynaszkiewicz, SJ