Part 1 of 5
by Bob Sullivan
Father Kapaun1 was a priest in the diocese of Wichita, Kan., in the 1940s and 1950s. He also served as a chaplain in the U.S. Army during that time. As a Captain and Chaplain in the 8th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division, his job was to serve the spiritual needs of all the men in his unit and Regiment, regardless of their faith, though many appeared to have converted to Catholicism because of his example.
After the Chinese entered the Korean War, Father Kapaun’s unit was attacked by a joint force of Communist North Korean and Chinese forces. The Americans suffered heavy losses, but instead of taking one last opportunity to retreat to a safe location, Father Kapaun and Dr. Clarence Anderson volunteered to stay with the wounded and dying American soldiers so they had someone to comfort them and advocate for them when the enemy soldiers took over. Right around that time, Father Kapaun was involved in something reminiscent of St. Maximilian Kolbe.
Sergeant Herbert Miller had been injured by an enemy grenade as his unit was overrun. Unable to walk, he laid in a ditch and acted dead whenever enemy soldiers walked past him. As the day wore on and the battle receded, the attention of the enemy soldiers turned to the bodies left behind. A North Korean soldier noticed that Miller was not yet dead, so he walked up to him, pointed his rifle at his forehead ready to execute him, but he hesitated. At that moment, the unarmed Father Kapaun seemed to come out of nowhere. He rushed over, pushed the stunned soldier aside and picked Miller up, saving him from instant death. This was one of a string of miraculous events involving Father Kapaun over the course of the months to come.
Years earlier, in the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, Father Maximilian Kolbe had done something quite similar. In that situation, one of his fellow inmates, Franciszek Gajowniczek, had been selected for death by starvation as punishment for the escape of several prisoners. When Saint Maximilian Kolbe heard Gajowniczek ask for mercy because he had a family, Kolbe broke rank and walked toward Deputy Commandant Karl Fritsch. Fritsch, was a particularly cruel Schutzstaffel (SS) officer, even when compared to other members of the SS. Fritsch’s thirst for evil stood out above the rest. St. Kolbe stopped in front of Fritsch and calmly volunteered to take Gajowniczek’s place.
Father Kolbe’s move stunned the prisoners and Nazis alike, because even the slightest provocation (or no provocation at all) was met with a severe beating or a bullet, and walking toward an SS officer was an extreme offense, not to mention addressing one. However, in this case Fritsch, who was described as the camp’s “lord of life and death,” was startled and stepped back, asking St. Kolbe who he was. It reminds me of John 18:6. Kolbe simply replied that he was a Catholic priest.
Everyone expected Fritsch to simply have him shot where he stood or add him to the group to be executed by starvation right along with Gajowniczek, but for a reason only a Christian can understand, he approved St. Kolbe’s request and allowed Gajowniczek to return to his barracks.
In Father Kapaun’s situation, he and his fellow captives had to survive a 60- to 100-mile death march to a prison camp in North Korea. Many American soldiers were executed or died on the march. Father Kapaun’s well-documented heroism on the march and in the camp is now part of his cause for canonization. Father Kapaun eventually died in the prison camp at the young age of 35. However, his humble and faithful heroism has been retold by many former prisoners since 1951, including his cunning and very risky practice of sneaking out of the camp in order to find food, including precious salt, to give to the prisoners, especially those who were the most malnourished and in need.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, already emaciated, suffering from tuberculosis and who regularly handed his measly daily ration to other prisoners did not die of starvation in the starvation bunker of Auschwitz. The Nazis finally executed him with a lethal injection because he was the last surviving prisoner in the cell.
Father Kapaun, who, like St. Maximilian Kolbe, regularly gave his ration of food away, was not executed for his courageous refusal to bow to the brutal force and horrible treatment of his communist captors. Instead, he developed a blood clot in his leg and pneumonia, so his captors moved him to what they called a “hospital.” It was nothing but a hut where they left prisoners to die from starvation, dehydration, or total neglect, without any other prisoners to help them.
St. Maximilan Kolbe has been called the Angel of Auschwitz due to his selfless and miraculous actions in the depths of the suffering and despair of the Nazi concentration camp. I have to think that someday the world will know of the similarities between St. Maximilian Kolbe and Father Kapaun. After all, both Gajowniczek and Miller survived their ordeals, returned home, and spent their lives telling everyone about the men who miraculously saved their lives at the very moment their lives hung in the balance.
In addition to Sergeant Miller, many other soldiers credit their survival to Father Kapaun’s prayers, work, and example. The death rate in the camp where Father Kapaun lived and died was a fraction of the death rate of the other prisoner of war camps in North Korea during the war.
In my next column, I’ll write about my participation in this year’s Father Kapaun Pilgrimage which involves a 60-mile walk from Wichita to Pilsen, Kan., Father Kapaun’s hometown.
1Father Kapaun’s name is properly pronounced Kuh-pawn, but many people, even those on the pilgrimage, pronounced it Kay-pun. The family from Pilsen has always pronounced it Kuh-pawn.
