World War II/Awesome: Difference between revisions

* Father Maximilian Maria Kolbe. Kolbe, who is a Franciscan friar, was already a candidate for CMOA way before World War Two - starting out from an impoverished but devout Polish family, Kolbe joined the Conventual Franciscans by risking death to cross from the Russian Orthodox-occupied East Poland to Austria-occupied West Poland. When he was ordained a priest, even though everyone believed that since he tuberculosis, suffered from it, and should have been killed by the disease! He helped found the largest monastery of its' day in Europe, where the largest daily newspaper in Poland would be published. Then, he did the same in Japan. Once the war came, Kolbe opened up his monastery to all who wanted refuge, including approximately 2,000 Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. He openly denounced the Nazis in his paper. Both of these contributed to Kolbe being arrested and sent to Auschwitz. There, as a priest (This is not well known, but Catholic priests were only marginally treated better than the Jews), he was forced to carry impossible loads of lumber and bricks by hand to build the crematoria. One day, after falling due to a collapsed lung, the Nazis beat him so savagely, and left him for dead. A sympathetic guard managed to smuggled him to the infirmary, where while he was recovering, he ministered to the patients there. There's numerous instances of him stepping out of the ration lines when it seems there's not enough to go around. Finally, after an escape, ten men were roun are rounded up at random and sentenced to die by starvation. Kolbe volunteered to take the place of one of them. He would survive three weeks in a dank cell, with no food, and buoying the spirits of his fellow condemned with songs and prayers. He was the last one left alive and the Nazis had to poison him to get him to die, so they can make room for the next condemned group. The man he saved survived four more years of Auschwitz, was liberated by the Soviets, and lived to see Kolbe canonized as a saint in 1982. He, Fr. Kolbe is now a saint of political prisoners.

** [[What Happened to the Mouse?|And the Japanese monastery?]] It's built in a city called Nagasaki. Plus, it's still standing - When Kolbe built the monastery, the locals were trying to persuade him to build it on the side of the mountain facing the city, which is a more auspicious orientation. Kolbe preferred the other side of the mountain, and in August 9, 1945, that saved the building when the atomic bomb hit.

* Captain Clarence E. Coggins, 45th Division, US Army serving in the 179th Infantry. After arriving in Germany shortly, he was captured. A general tried to interrogate him and learn of the location of his fellow American troops. He eventually convinced the general that [[Blatant Lies|the German camp was surrounded by allied soldiers]] and surrendering would be the best option. Clarence even drove back to his division in the GENERAL'S OWN CAR, with 946 German soldiers, all their arms, equipment, and vehicles in tow.