Document of the Times of Terror. Notes of Rev. Joachim Besler, SVD, Chaplain of the Katowice Prison in the Years 1942–1945

Abstract

Notes written and edited by rev. Joachim Besler, SVD, chaplain of the Katowice prison between 1942 and 1945, and stored at the Archives of the Archdiocese of Katowice, constitute an important testimony of the last moments of the life of Blessed rev. Jan Macha and two of his co-workers, Joachim Gűrtler and Leon Rydrych. The notes are also an important source enabling us to broaden our knowledge on the people guillotined in the Katowice prison and bringing a lot of detailed information on the functioning of this institution itself as the place of martyrdom of the Polish population of Upper Silesia in the times of the German occupation. Rev. Besler started his service as chaplain in this prison on 28 July 1942 and worked there until January 1945, when Red Army troops entered Katowice. According to his memoirs, he had prepared about five hundred people for death, most of whom were Polish, but there were also some Germans, Italians and Frenchmen. He also remembered several women whose confession he had taken before their execution. Ali the prisoners were brought over to Katowice from various prisons in the provinces of Katowice and Opole, such as Bielsko, Cieszyn, Strzelce and Racibórz. At that time, rev. Besler took conspiratorial notes on the people sentenced to death and on their death circumstances. The notes were then used to create a manuscript, which was subsequently re-written and stored in the archives. The document has already been quoted by historians, but it has never been published as a whole.