Triumph of the Heart

Auschwitz, 1941.

After an escape, the SS guards select 10 prisoners to starve to death as punishment.

Father Kolbe volunteers to take the place of a family man who has pleaded to the guards for mercy.

He endures the starvation bunker for two weeks, providing solace and prayer to the other men, until he is one of the last alive.

Although nearing death, news of his actions and those of the other men spread across the camp, providing light and dignity in the worst of places.

Father Kolbe was beatified in 1971 and canonized as a saint by Pope John Paul II in 1982.