Blessed Alois Andritzki

Alojs Andritzki (firstname also written Aloys, in Upper Sorbian Alojs Andricki, 2 July 1914 - 3 February 1943) was a Sorbian Roman Catholic priest who suffered martyrdom in the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1943. He was ordained as a priest just prior to the beginning of World War II in which he became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and its actions; this earned him their ire and he was arrested before being sent to the Dachau concentration camp where he was administered a lethal injection. His beatification was celebrated in Dresden on 13 June 2011. Alojs Andritzki was born in 1914 as the fourth of six children to the schoolteacher Johann Andritzki and Magdalena Ziesch. His father took all the children once a month to visit various shrines and instilled in them piety. This prompted his two older brothers to become priests themselves. His two sisters were Marja and Marta and his three brothers were Jan and Great and Alfons who was the sixth child and a Jesuit who died in World War II as a soldier. In 1934 he began theological studies at Paderborn and later began official studies to become a priest in Bautzen; he was elevated to the diaconate in 1938. Andritzki received his ordination to the priesthood on 30 July 1939 in Bautzen from Bishop Petrus Legge and he celebrated his first Mass in Radibor on the following 6 August. The Gestapo oversaw his arrest on 21 January 1941 for producing Christmas theatre and was described as having made "hostile statements" against the Nazi regime thus the motivator for his arrest. He was interrogated on 7 February 1941 and was first sent to the detention center at Dresden but was moved two months later on 2 October 1941 to the Dachau concentration camp with the prisoner number 27829. Back in July 1941 he was sentenced to six months due to "insidious attacks" against the regime. His father sent a moving letter to Berlin asking for pardon since there were no charges but this appeal was instead ignored.