The Death and Legacy of #16670

On August 5, I posted an article mostly about Jesse Owens, who remarkably won his fourth Olympic gold medal on August 9, 1936. This article is about Maximilian Kolbe, a man who died five years and five days later, on August 14, 1941.

At the Berlin Olympics in 1936 Owens was snubbed by Hitler because of his being of African descent. Kolbe, a Polish Catholic priest, was killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp operated by Hitler’s Nazis.

Owens became known worldwide because of his athletic achievements before tens of thousands of people. Kolbe became known worldwide because of his sacrificial death witnessed by hardly anyone.

Maximilian Kolbe was born in January 1894 in what was then the Kingdom of Poland. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in April 1918, and the following year he began teaching in a seminary in Krakow.

Fr. Kolbe went to Japan as a missionary in 1930. The following year he founded a monastery and school in the suburbs of Nagasaki, and he also started publishing a Japanese edition of the periodical he had published in Poland.

By 1933 Seibo no Kishi (Knights of the Holy Mother) is said to have had a circulation of 50,000—and still today it is the leading Catholic monthly periodical in Japan.

On April 30 my blog article was titled “In Memory of Dr. Nagai.” Takashi Nagai was the doctor and medical school professor who suffered serious injuries in the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bomb explosion over Nagasaki.

Dr. Nagai (1908-51) had been baptized in 1934. As a new Christian he met Fr. Kolbe a few times—and even treated him as a patient.

After being seriously injured by the atomic explosion, Dr. Nagai thought about Kolbe often. When it seemed as if Nagai was going to die, someone brought him water from the Lourdes grotto the Polish Catholic priest had built—and he began to recover miraculously and lived nearly six more years.

Because of his poor health, Kolbe returned to Poland in 1936. In February of 1941, he was arrested by the Nazi Gestapo for hiding Jewish people in his Polish monastery. Kolbe was soon sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp and branded prisoner #16670.

In late July, an inmate of Auschwitz escaped. To discourage others from trying to do likewise, the Nazi guards selected ten prisoners at random to die by starvation. One of the ten chosen was Franciszek Gajowniczek, who cried out for mercy because he had a wife and children.

Upon hearing Gajowniczek’s pitiful plea, Kolbe stepped up, identified himself as a Catholic priest, and volunteered to take his place. Somewhat surprisingly, the Nazi in charge agreed.

After nearly three weeks, Kolbe and three of the other nine were still alive, barely. To clear out the cell, the four were then given an injection to kill them in a matter of minutes. This was the terrible end of the life of Maximilian Kolbe—but his story has lived on. 

Forty-one years later, in October 1982, Kolbe was canonized—and the ceremony in Rome was witnessed in person by Gajowniczek, who, amazingly, lived to be 94. When he was canonized by John Paul II, who was a Pole like Kolbe, the Pope proclaimed him as the “patron saint of the difficult 20^th century.”

“Life for Life,” a 1991 movie about Maximilian Kolbe, closes with a still shot of Jesus’ words recorded in the Bible: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

In Memory of Dr. Nagai

Some of you readers of this blog know Kathy Laffoon, my oldest daughter. Kathy and her family moved to Liberty in 2008 when she took a job as a gifted education teacher in the Liberty Public School. In the last few years she has been working with many of her middle school students doing National History Day (NHD) projects—and in recent years I have been a resource person or a mentor for some of those students.

This year two of Kathy’s students teamed up to do a NHD project on Dr. Takashi Nagai, who died 65 years ago on May 1, 1951.

I enjoyed meeting with those two boys a few times in connection with their project, and I was impressed to see how interested they were in learning about Nagai. They made a webpage (link to it here) in order to introduce him to other people.

Some of you may remember my mentioning Dr. Nagai in articles I posted on this blog last August. (See here and here.) He was a doctor who was teaching at the medical college in Nagasaki, Japan, at the time the atomic bomb was dropped on that city on August 9, 1945.

Nagai’s research specialty was radiology, and he had already contracted leukemia from his exposure to radiation. And then he was seriously injured by the bomb.

In spite of his illness and injuries, though, Nagai worked tirelessly to give medical assistance to many who were injured by the explosion and also to those who suffered long term health problems because of what came to be known as “radiation sickness.”

From July 1946 until his death, Nagai was confined to bed. He spent much of his time writing, and his best known and most powerful book is Bells of Nagasaki. He finished writing that book in 1946 but did not get permission from the American Occupation officials to publish it until 1949.

The English translation of Nagai’s book was published in 1994. It was done by William Johnston, an Irish-born Catholic missionary who arrived in Japan just in time to attend Nagai’s funeral in 1951.

The title of Nagai’s book refers to the bells of Urakami Cathedral, which at the time was the largest Christian church in Asia. Nagai was a member of that church, and, of course, grieved greatly at its destruction. It was very near the epicenter of the atomic explosion, and some of its remains can still be seen in the Nagasaki Peace Park.

In 1947, local Catholics built a simple two-tatami (about 36 sq. ft.) teahouse-like structure for Nagai. He named it Nyokodo (literally “As-Yourself Hall,” after Jesus’ words, “Love your neighbor as yourself”).

While bed-fast there in what he considered his hermitage, Nagai was visited many notable people, such as Helen Keller in 1948. The following year he was also visited there by Emperor Hirohito and by Cardinal Gilroy, as the emissary of Pope Pius XII.

Dr. Nagai with his children in Nyokodo

Many years ago I went with some of my Seinan Gakuin University students to visit Nyokodo, which with the addition of a library had become the Nagasaki City Nagai Takashi Memorial Museum in 1952. My visit there was before the English translation of Nagai’s book was published, and I hadn’t taken the time to read it in Japanese. Consequently, I didn’t appreciate it as much then as I would now.

If you would like to read more about Dr. Nagai, I recommend Paul Glynn’s fine book A Song for Nagasaki (1988), which Kathy’s students found to be very helpful in preparing their National History Day project.

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INTERVIEW WITH DR. NAGAI

Here is the link to a 5-minute radio interview with Dr. Nagai that was broadcast nationwide in Japan on Aug. 9, 1950. The interview is in Japanese, of course, but there is a brief English explanation worth reading. And those of you who can’t understand Japanese might still enjoy hearing his voice.

The Significance of August 15

It goes without saying that for me, personally, today (August 15) is a very significant date, for this is my birthday. Little did I know, though, growing up as a boy in rural northwest Missouri that August 15 is one of the most significant dates in Japanese history and also an important date for the Roman Catholic Church.

In Japan, August 15 is usually referred to as shusenbi (“end of the war day”), although since 1982 it has been officially designated by the Japanese government as “the day for mourning of war dead and praying for peace.”

In the U.S. September 2, when the signing of the surrender document aboard the USS Missouri occurred, is considered V-J Day. But it was on August 15, 1945, that Emperor Hirohito announced on radio to the startled and grieving Japanese public that Japan had accepted the terms of surrender included in the Potsdam Declaration of July 26.

In classic understatement, the Emperor told the Japanese citizens, who were hearing his voice for the first time, “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage.” (Even then, the Emperor’s speech was not a direct broadcast; it was replayed from a phonograph recording made in the Tokyo Imperial Palace a day or two before.)

For centuries before that fateful day in 1945, and long before it was made a Church dogma by Pope Pius XII in 1950, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven had been celebrated on August 15. That is the event by which Mary “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” according to the Catholic Church, and it is still a “holy day of obligation.”  

Doubtlessly, it was by intention that Ignatius Loyola and his six friends in 1534 formed the Society of Jesus on August 15. Then, exactly fifteen years later, Francis Xavier, one of the seven original Jesuits and the first Christian missionary to Japan, first set foot in that country. 

In the book about Takashi Nagai that I mentioned earlier this month, author Paul Glynn tells about the 400th anniversary of that event being celebrated by Dr. Nagai and other Christians in Nagasaki on August 15, 1949. 

And in his book Bells of Nagasaki, Dr. Nagai tells of going to the dawn mass on August 15, just six days after the bombing, in celebration of the Feast of the Assumption (p. 77). 

On November 23, 1945, there was a memorial mass for the more than 8,000 Christians who were victims of the Nagasaki atomic bomb. Dr. Nagai gave an address to those who had gathered by the ruins of the Urakami Cathedral. 

In that notable speech, Dr. Nagai said, “On August 15th, the imperial edict that put an end to the fighting was officially issued, and the whole world saw the light of peace. August 15th is also the great feast of the Assumption of Mary. It is not for nothing that the Urakami Cathedral was consecrated to Her” (p. 107). 

(That Cathedral, which in 1945 was the largest church building in Asia, was called St. Mary’s Cathedral in English.) 

Last Sunday most Christians and many others all across Japan thought deeply about the tragic events that took place in Japan 70 years ago this month and about the end of the war on August 15. 

Let us join with them, and people all around the world, to remember that today is an appropriate day for mourning the war dead—in all countries—and praying for world peace.

Hiroshima / Nagasaki

This week is the 70^th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many of you will see/hear mention made of this noteworthy anniversary in the public media, but please consider with me some of the facts and interpretations of those tragic events.

The first ever atomic bomb dropped in warfare was at 8:15 (local time) on the morning of August 6, 1945. Although not nearly as many people were killed that day as in the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9-10, the use of the atomic bomb ushered in a terrible new age of warfare. The firebombing of Tokyo was carried out by 279 airplanes, but in Hiroshima one bomb dropped from one airplane instantly killed from 70,000 to 80,000 people. And unlike the bombs up until this time, the atomic bombs caused “radiation sickness” that resulted in the death of more people than were killed instantly.

Just three days later, on August 9, shortly after 11:00 a.m. the second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. About 40,000 people died there that day. The combined death toll from the two bombs, however, was considerably over 200,000 by the end of 1945.

After all these years, the debate about the use of those two atomic bombs continues. Last month I heard a talk by American historian Richard Frank at the Truman Library in Independence. Frank, author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (1999), was emphatic in his insistence that both atomic bombs were completely necessary for ending the Pacific War.

By contrast, Australian historian Paul Ham concludes his book Hiroshima, Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath (2011) with these words:

At the time of war, people will applaud any story their government feeds them. Americans continue to swear blind [sic] that the bombs alone ended the war; that they were America’s ‘least abhorrent’ choice. These are plainly false propositions, salves to uneasy consciences over what was actually done on 6 and 9 August 1945 when, under a summer sky without warning, hundreds of thousands of civilian men, women and children felt the sun fall on their heads (p. 510).

Takashi Nagai (1908-1951)

One of the most intriguing personal accounts of a survivor of the bombings is that left by Takashi Nagai, a medical doctor and professor at the Nagasaki Medical College near the epicenter of the atomic explosion. His first-hand account is found in The Bells of Nagasaki (Japanese, 1949; English, 1984).

Paul Glynn’s Song for Nagasaki (1989) is an excellent biography about Dr. Nagai. Reading the experiences of this devout Christian doctor gives a much different perspective of the atomic bomb from what is usually heard in this country.

Fortunately, no nuclear device has been used in military action since 1945, and for that we can be most grateful. But vigilance is required by the peoples of the world. Perhaps the most frightening realization is that both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons—and most probably Israel as well.

And a large number of nukes still remain in Russia--and in the arsenal of Pres. Putin. The Federation of American Scientists reports that Russia now has a stockpile of approximately 4,500 nuclear warheads, including nearly 1,800 strategic warheads deployed on missiles and at bomber bases. And the U.S., the only country to drop atomic bombs in warfare, has about 4,760 with 2,080 deployed.

So, as we think back to the horrors of 1945, let’s continue to cry out with people of conscience around the world, No More Hiroshimas, No More Nagasakis!