One night in July 1941, one of the prisoners in Kolbe’s block escaped, and as a result, Maximilian Kolbe was to perform his final act of sacrifice.

It was the policy of the brutal camp commandant, Fritsch, to call to assembly the prisoners af a block where there had been an escape, where they would remain for the entire day. If the prisoners in question had not been caught by the end of the day, ten men would be executed for every escapee. Sure enough, at the end of the day, ten men were chosen, among them a young Polish sergeant named Franciszek Gajowniczek, who, on being chosen, began to beg for the sake of his wife and children.

Maximilian stepped forward. Respectfully removing his cap, he offered to go in the place of the young Polish soldier. Those who were there recalled later that the commandant was so stunned by this gesture that he was unable to speak. Eventually, he curtly sent Gajowniczek back to his place. Maximilian replaced him.

The ten men were locked in a cell and left to starve to death. But as the days wore on, there were no cries for mercy, no sounds of weeping. For, in the bunker, Maximilian continued to comfort his fellow victims. The people in the cell survived longer than anyone has a business to, and in the end, the Nazi guards came in and finished off the remaining four prisoners with lethal injections of carbonic acid.

The last prisoner conscious was Maximilian Kolbe, who finally had the opportunity to win the red crown that he had been offered so many years ago.

Franciszek Gajownizcek survived. He was present with his large family, his children and grandchildren, at the ceremony in 1982 which marked Maximilian Kolbe officially becoming a saint of the Catholic church. Gajownizek died in 1995, a great-grandfather who never forgot what the old priest had done for him.