Maximilian Maria Kolbe was born in Poland in 1894 and joined the Franciscans. He founded the Militia of the Immaculata, spread the Gospel through publishing and radio, and served as a missionary in Nagasaki, Japan.

During the Second World War the Nazis sent him to Auschwitz. In 1941, when ten men were condemned to a starvation bunker in reprisal for an escape, he offered to take the place of Franciszek Gajowniczek, a husband and father.

In the bunker he prayed with the others and cared for them to the end. He was killed by lethal injection on August 14, 1941, and was canonized as a martyr by John Paul II in 1982.