Blessed Bronisław Komorowski

Bronisław Komorowski (25 May 1889 – 22 March 1940) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest, active in the interwar period in the predominantly German Free City of Danzig. Komorowski, a Polish patriot and educator, was murdered by the Nazi occupiers at Stutthof concentration camp, together with a number of Polish activists captured during the Polish September Campaign. On 13 June 1999, Komorowski was among 108 Polish martyrs of World War II, beatified in Warsaw by Pope John Paul II. Komorowski was born in Barloschno (today known as Barłożno), a village located some 65 kilometers south of Danzig (Gdańsk). His parents were Jan Komorowski (1840–1892) and Katarzyna née Gencza (1859–1925). The father, who was a widower with seven children, after the death of his first wife, Joanna Dluzewska, married Gencza in 1888, a widow with one child. They had three children – Bronisław, Wacław (1890–1891), and Anna (1892-?). In 1892, after the death of Jan Komorowski, Katarzyna married a wealthy farmer Jan Fankidejski (1866–1934), with whom she had three more children. Bronisław Komorowski was raised with the Fankidejski family, and among his stepfather's friends, there were local Polish activists of Eastern Pomerania, patriotic Roman Catholic priests, Jakub Fankidejski (1844–1883), who also was a historian and teacher at Collegium Marianum in Pelplin, and Feliks Bolt (1864–1940), who became a senator in the Second Polish Republic. Komorowski attended a high school in Culm, and after graduation (1910), he joined a seminary in Pelplin. He was ordained in 1914, and sent to a parish in the village of Langenau, near Praust. In 1915, he was transferred from Langenau to St. Nicolaus, one of the oldest churches in Danzig. The young vicar, apart from his church activities, helped Polish community of the city, teaching the children Polish history and Polish language. Since 1919, all his sermons were in Polish.