He was born
on the 22nd of January 1913 in Chełmża, as the third of six children of Ludwik
and Marta née Olszewska. He finished the primary and middle school in Chełmża.
On the 21st of March 1927 he joined the Zawisza Czarny Scouts Squad. Soon he
joined the Solidarity of Our Lady. Both organizations have had a considerable
impact on his attitude and character. He successively obtained new levels and
functions in the scouts.
In 1931
Frelichowski entered the Seminary in Pelplin. During his studies between 1933
and 1936 he was the Scoutmaster of the Seminarians Scout Association. He took
the holy orders on the 14th of March 1937. First, he worked as the chaplain and
personal secretary of the bishop of Chełmno, Stanisław Wojciech Okoniewski, in
Pelplin and on the 2nd of July 1938 he was named curate in the Assumption of
Mary Church in Toruń. He made good use of his scouting experience in his
pastoral work. He easily made friends with young people and he was well-liked.
Just before the outbreak of the war Frelichowski participated in the
preparations of the scouts for difficult tasks and responsibilities that could
be ahead of them in case of war.
On the 11th
of September 1939 Rev Frelichowski has been arrested by the Germans together
with the other priests from his parish. The priests were detained in a prison
in Toruń and then released. On the 18th of October Rev Frelichowski has been
arrested again and put in prison in the Fort VII where he spent three months.
During his arrest he organized the religious life of the prisoners. Rev
Wojciech Gajdus, co-prisoner of Rev Frelichowski, wrote:
“…there was
a dark, vaulted bakery in Fort VII. Just behind the oven, by the wall, there
was some space where Wicek was confessing. In the dark, boys and men were
coming to the corner of the bakery. There waited a man who made peace between
souls and God. Many times I saw begging gestures, exhorting God or human,
joining them in one. I saw people who came back from the confessional-bakery,
from the man who always waited there… This priest confessed like everybody
else. What made those confessions so different? It was Wicek, he caught God
directly and you could feel this moment; something in his voice… transmitted an
echo of a voice that you could rarely hear, giving the heart this beat, in
which a hungry person found bread, an empty found fulfillment that made him
carry on and trust.”
On the 10th
of January 1940 Rev Frelichowski, together with other priests, has been
transported to the camp in Nowy Port in Gdańsk where he lived for almost a
month. In the last days of January he was transferred to Stutthof camp.
In Stutthof,
the priests were forced to do the most difficult work. Often during the evening
assemblies they were punished by whipping for committing alleged transgressions,
e.g. “bad workmanship”. During one of these assemblies, Rev Frelichowski wanted
to give courage to other prisoners and was the first one to submit himself to
whipping. When one of the prisoners died, Rev Frelichowski dared to celebrate
the funeral, a thing that was strictly prohibited in the camp, and was severely
beaten by the Germans. On the 21st of March 1940, the Holy Thursday, and on the
24th of March, the Easter, Rev Frelichowski participated in the organization
and celebration of Holy Masses. Both of which took place in the priests’ block
before the morning reveille and were kept in secret.
On the Holy
Friday, the 22nd of March 1940, the SS-men were particularly cruel to the
priests. They ordered them to lie on the ground, while the lagerführer trampled
on them and beat them with a stick. Rev Frelichowski consoled the maltreated
priests with Saint Paul’s words speaking about filling up “in one’s own
flesh that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ”.
During his
imprisonment in Stutthof, Rev Frelichowski also worked in carrying out corpses
from the area and in quarries situated in the Grenzdorf sub-camp. On the 9th of
April 1940 the priest was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in a
transport of 1000 prisoners. In this camp he was given no. 20966.
In
Sachsenhausen the priest was humiliated and persecuted. The chief of the
quarantine block, the criminal Hugo Krey, wanted to humiliate Rev Frelichowski
in front of the SS-men and the other prisoners. He named him his “bishop” and
while shaving the priest’s head he ordered to leave on his head a shape of a zucchetto.
Rev Frelichowski calmly endured those insults. Then he was transferred to block
no. 56 and engaged in unloading barges and carrying bricks to the newly built
crematorium. Apart from the slave work he lead and developed the religious life
in the camp.
In
mid-December 1940, Rev Frelichowski together with the other priests has been
transferred to KL Dachau, where he survived another four years and died a
martyr’s death. In Dachau he was given number 22492.
On the 23rd
of February 1945, suffering from typhus and pneumonia, Rev Stefan Wincenty
Frelichowski died in the area of block no. 7. The authorities of the camp gave
their consent to show his body in public in the mortuary. The chief of the
department, Frelichowski’s friend and a student of medicine, Stanisław Bieńka
took two bones out of the right hand’s ring finger to secure the relics and
made a plaster death mask. The mask and one of the bones have been buried in
the camp and later, after the camp’s liberation, they were given to the
priest’s mother, Marta Frelichowska. The second bone has been set into the wall
in the Assumption of Mary Church in Toruń.
In 1964
Kazimierz J. Kowalski, the bishop of Chełmno, began the information proceedings
on the holiness of life and the heroic virtues of Rev S. Frelichowski. In 1992,
the Congregation for the Causes of Saints handed over the research work to the
Diocese in Toruń. On the 18th of February 1995 the research has been finished.
In 1999, Pope John Paul II exalted Rev Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski. In 1948,
Rev Frelichowski has been posthumously awarded with the Officer's Cross
of the Order of Polonia Restituta and in 1995 with the Silver Polish Scout
Association Cross of Merit. One of the squares in Toruń has been named after
him, as well as the bell of the parish church in Jastrzębie.
Source:
Elżbieta Grot „Błogosławieni męczennicy obozu Stutthof” Gdańsk
1999.
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Tłumaczenie:
Katarzyna Flis
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