“The time to fight God” is not just a reading in which a reader like me (i.e. the average) constantly asks himself, “How could I not know it, not remember it?” For the book of these facts is full of very moving facts of large importance. And with a feeling of guilt, I find the facts frequently unknown to me. I read this thrilling and mostly shocking book. And I know that the caliber of cognition contained in it will most likely make certain that it does not fade rapidly in memory, and what crucial content I will share with others. So possibly my sin of not knowing what “Time to fight God” is going to be a small less?
Real good books, among others, have specified value that during their reading they open in our heads “capsules” of reflection, associations, memory. 1 of my “caps” is connected with the 50th anniversary of my grandparents' wedding. This was in 1991. As you know, half a century of matrimony is an chance for a peculiar church ceremony. It was in connection with her that my grandparents – the Jubilees went to the parish office, in which the parish priest began to look in the corresponding book for an entry on the subject given to them before the half-century sacrament. So the priest flips over the cards of the old book, looks, searches, with the increasing amazement he repeats the act respective times, until yet with a grin like astonishment or embarrassment he says to my grandparents: “Dear... Are you certain you're married in this church? due to the fact that I have not a word about this in the parish books here...” The astonishment that my grandparents had to ask, I think everyone can imagine. My grandfather, in spite of the state of rather a dazzling state, did not lose his sense of humor, so he replied, “You want to tell us that according to the parish books we have been surviving on a cat’s paw for 50 years?” The priest answered with a broad smile, "According to the archives of the Lord God it may not be, but according to those before me, it seems so." Then he asked, “I realize that the parish priest gave the wedding?” At this point, a terrible memory of 50 years ago abruptly shook my grandmother. “Oh God, I think I know how this could have happened...” The wedding took place in 1941 in the parish church in Sarnów (a town boasting city rights already given in the time of Kazimierz the Great, now part of Rawicz). In the terrible times of the German business the wedding was very modest, after returning from the church the home was filled by relatives and acquaintances, there were no musicians, the only origin of music was the patephone. The organization was to be attended by a priest who, despite the announcements, did not come. And he didn't come... It was not until the next day that individual conveyed the message that almost immediately after the Holy Mass, during which my grandparents were married, the priest was taken distant by Germany. He never came back again. After the war, it turned out that he was taken to a camp in Dachau where he was murdered. After 50 years, trying to reconstruct the events of the day erstwhile my grandparents were married, it was decided that after mass and wishing the newlyweds a greeting, the priest did not even scope the rectory. And thus – to the parish office. Thus – he could no longer compose a note about the sacrament of my grandparents in the matrimony book.
Author: Andrzej Nowak, Wydawnictwo: Biały Kruk, Year of Issue: 2025, Title: “Time to Fight God”.Wondering how it was possible to halt the priest in a way that no of the participants of the just completed Holy Mass noticed, I tried to imagine this event by walking around the church in Sarnów. That's how I know it wasn't hard. The temple and rectory are surrounded by a alternatively advanced wall (built in the 18th century by Protestants for the work of this court for the initiation of anti-Catholic riots). It was adequate that a fewer Gestapo men in civilian clothes set up their vehicle on this outside wall. There's quite a few places out there where no 1 could see him. And escort the priest there erstwhile no 1 else was on the inside wall. By leaving in the most apparent direction, the German torturers to the town limits had to pass 1 street, the post office buildings, the railway station and the Catholic cemetery. I heard individual saw it, but he was far from certain of what happened. It was only after many hours that they made sure.
Arresting the priest was of course a shock to the parish, but besides an event rather typical of the time. Almost all day the Germans made any detentions or arrests, for only known reasons they searched houses and farms (perhaps in search of equipment that Poles on the lands incarnate in the Reich had no right, i.e. bicycles or cameras). Shortly before that, they besides demolished and removed all traces of Sarnovsky's synagogue. Similarly, they made of the judaic cemetery, from which the matzevahs most likely utilized it as a stone building of the road needed by their army. And since this cemetery was adjacent to the sand mine – its extraction besides began from the cemetery area. Since then, it has been hard to identify the place where it was at all. He was somewhere where there was a immense gap in the ground since the German occupation. However, the Jews themselves were no longer present during the business in Sarnów. From the memories of my deceased in 1986, great-grandmothers know that shortly after the Wielkopolska Uprising almost everyone moved to Germany. Which was not a hard step for them, due to the fact that the border was a fewer kilometres from Sarnow and most of Sarnow's assets and interests The Jews had on her west side. The vast majority of Wielkopolska Jews, in peculiar Poznań Jews, did likewise. What was their destiny in Hitler's time – in Sarnów it was most likely not adequate to know. And the reality of life from the incarnation of the town to the Reich became just specified that even the abrupt arrest of the parish priest, though shocking, did not surprise. due to the fact that specified events were then everyday.
Discovered after 50 years, the innotation of the sacrament of matrimony in the parish books active proving that the wedding of my grandparents had taken place at all. There were no photographic records. As I mentioned before, Poles on lands incorporated into the Reich were not allowed to have cameras or usage services specified as taking photographs. Poles – only Germans could photograph for their purposes. And no German was a wedding guest. any of these guests did not last the war, and after 50 years only a fewer people lived from all of them. It was on the basis of their statements in 1991 that a vow between Marta Polny and Stefan Pietrzak was entered into the Roman – Catholic parish of St Andrew the Apostle. On this occasion, any besides remembered the priest whom the Germans had arrested and murdered in their camp in Dachau. besides about many another priests whose destiny under German business was very similar. Among another things, prof. Andrzej Nowak writes about specified crimes in “The Time to Fight God”. And recalling them, it makes the memory of my household life alive. From prof. Nowak's book I learned now that only in this tragic October 1941 Germans arrested and imprisoned as many as 506 priests from Wielkopolska and Lodz Voivodeship in the Dachau camp. The execution of the parish priest from “my” Sarnow was so only a tiny part of the immense action then carried out by the Germans of genocide. Genocide and decapitated to item the work of decapitation of the Polish nation, a terrible act of extermination of the full Polish leadership layer, along with priests of the Catholic Church.
When we talk about Dachau, I find it hard to defy another individual reflection at this point. I don't know how long I've known the scary sound of the name of this German town. I have the impression that in Poland we have all known them since childhood and we all associate with terrible, highly vile crimes. I even remember reasoning a long time ago about how people surviving in cities like Dachau feel. Do they not want to change these names, associated with the places where they live, with unimaginable crimes committed by degenerative executioners speaking the same German language. So will the inhabitants of such, for example, Dachau not want a name associated with specified a ghostly change or at least this name quality marginalize, hide? The answer to that question was almost forty years ago. That is, 30 years after the war, erstwhile there were inactive many who knew German business from their own experience, erstwhile the memory of genocide on a mass scale carried out, for example, in this Dachau was much more fresh than today. someway in the late 1980s large trucks with immense containers appeared in Wrocław. They most likely came from Germany in connection with any contracts with 1 of the Wrocław factories. They could frequently be seen on Grabiszyńska Street, where there was besides a mill of construction machinery “Fadroma” and Huta Metali Nieżelaznych “Hutmen” and Fabryka Automatów Tokarskie FAT. Large German trucks frequently parked at Pereca Square (because from there close to the mentioned factories and to the city center and the parking lot was large and lit). And that's right – each of these trucks had a immense sign: “DACHAU”. They most likely came from any company located in the city, cooperating with 1 of the Wrocław factories. I remember the shock I experienced the first time I saw it. And I remember the reactions of people waiting at the tram stop, close which 1 of the German trucks frequently stood with a large sign: “DACHAU”. It was possible that everyone looked in her direction expressing their faces astonishment, possibly even terror, and most frequently astonishment. individual waiting for the tram tried to realize how it was possible and what it meant. erstwhile asked, “Do they not understand...?” individual said, “Kulturtraegers bring us Dachau again...” And then I realized the scale of denial or alternatively the non-existence in Germany of the memory of German crimes. Since then, I am no longer amazed that what Germans did in Hitler's time in modern Germany does not really know a proverbial dog with a lame leg.
The books, the subject of which are terrible crimes, are simply sometimes hard to read, their reception is simply – exhausting. After reading respective devoted genocides in Volyn, the most frightening of which was “Hate” by Stanisław Srokowski, I have a problem taking another. I know that this subject must not be escaped, that on the contrary – the memory of the savagely murdered is simply a duty. However, the descriptions of terrible atrocities "I can't help", the testimonies of the unspeakable sufferings and the imaginable cruelty that make me feel helpless, and the desire to escape. And from the images mentioned in the papers on Volyn or akin misfortunes – it is impossible to escape. They shake and in consciousness – they stay. prof. Andrzej Nowak's "Time of Combating God" is besides filled with facts, from learning which can be weaned. But not only is it filled with unfettered suffering and not only the awareness of terrible human victims from reading it. The testimonies of martyrdom of thousands of priests, spiritual and spiritual sisters are frequently besides information about the superhuman triumphs of humanity. Ethical Testimony, Archaic – Humanistic triumph over Organized Destruction. triumph besides – over temporality. I am referring to decisions specified as the holy father Maximilian Kolbe or eleven Sisters of the fresh Gardeners, who gave their lives for those convicted of murdering hostages. specified events besides shake, frighten, but, above all, strengthen the belief in the superior sense of divine order, in the infinite power of good. religion in the greatness God’s children are capable of. specified testimonies, which inspire infinite admiration and respect, desire to know each another as much as possible. For it is hard for anything more upbuilding. Hence my desire to know and experience the best possible examples of specified attitudes and decisions. prof. Andrzej Nowak's book is simply a catalogue of specified attitudes. How much poorer we are if we do not know the past of our heroic priests. besides bishops specified heroic as Antoni Baraniak or Ignacy Tokarczuk, primates and cardinals the size of Stefan Wyszyński or August Hlond. erstwhile you know about specified giants of the spirit, about purples of specified a format – a smaller caliber of any present-day Episcopal members is easier to accept as a kind of temporary shortness of breath. truly – it is wonderful to know how many we had so great! How recent! This consciousness produces religion that specified are inactive born in our homeland, that we will have many more. Of course – this future should not affect another period of martyrdom of the Church. However, as quoted by prof. Andrzej Nowak, Father Jacek Salij expects ...
The "time to fight God" reminds us by which the abyss of earthly hell in its past had to go the Church. And that this communicative filled with suffering is not a closed book. Astounding, how effectively, to this day, UB operations from the first half of the 1950s were able to be erased from the Polish consciousness, consisting in arresting and imprisonment for long years of thousands of Polish spiritual sisters. And how successful were the figures of specified priests as Roman Kotlarz, murdered shortly after his gestures of care for the strikers in 1976, Radom workers. How small we remember present many others, brutally assaulted, persecuted, beaten, tortured and killed. How ghastly correct is prof. Andrzej Nowak's message that what is called "the breakthrough of 1989" by "unknown perpetrators" from the communist apparatus of panic was even manifested by 3 more murders. It's like killings to make you realize, "don't think that things are truly changing in the country." And as if to confirm this mocking signal each 1 of these crimes had been released by the prosecutors, no of the post-communist justice authorities took care of them. Neither did anyone who in the years of the Polish People's Republic lift a finger in these matters – they utilized the care of the Church, and in 1989 they turned distant from the Church, as friends and "people of honour" recognising their fresh (or possibly sometimes and old) friends from the elites of PZPR and SB. most likely that is why the title “Time to Fight God” is inactive going on. And it's even getting stronger recently, due to the fact that again more priests are being attacked and killed, religion is being rejected from schools, signs of religion – from public space.
surely not only for me prof. Andrzej Nowak's book, counting a small over a 4th of a 1000 pages, becomes much more extended in the process of reading it. This is the consequence of my already mentioned "capsules of memory", which open up to almost all paragraph. This passage of the book, which spoke of hateful marches a fewer years ago, during which temples were attacked and Holy Mass was interrupted, reminded me of this episode of those events, which amazed me and shocked me most at the time. This was a fewer days after 1 of these public hateful orgies, conducted by individuals belonging to the modern "Salon". Walking in Warsaw on Karolkowa Street on the wall of the church of St. Clement, I saw a spray-painted inscription – virtually a fewer meters from the plaque commemorating the execution in this place, in the first days of August 1944 over forty monks and priests. The text of this inscription consisted of completed exclamation points of 2 words (in the first version – with letters alternatively of dots): “J...Ć KLER” Unimaginable, but it looked like an addition to this commemorative plaque: “Germany, you did well!” due to the fact that didn't that sound like the desire to proceed the same Nazi work?
A large part of Polish past is the time to fight Poland. Like a large part of the last 2 millenniums – it is simply a time to fight God. And there is no denying that this time is inactive going on.
Artur Adamski
