Troska salezjanów o bpa Antoniego Baraniaka SDB w okresie jego internowania w Marszałkach (29 grudnia 1955 r. – 1 kwietnia 1956 r.)

Abstract

During the night of 25th to 26th of September 1953, at the same time when Stefan Wyszyński the Primate of Poland, a Salesian bishop Antoni Baraniak SDB, was arrested. One of the Cardinal’s closest co-workers was imprisoned for three years at a detention centre in Mokotów district in Warsaw where he was brutally interrogated and subjected to physical and psychological torture. He was, among others, interrogated 145 times sometimes even for several hours in a row. He had his fingernails pulled out and was often held for many days naked in a freezing cold cell full of faeces. In spite of cruel tortures he never broke down and did not testify against the Primate which was the main goal of the communist authorities. If they had received any information related with Stefan Wyszyński’s pastoral activity, they would have been able to sue him and accuse of high treason and a counter-revolutionary initiatives. In the state of physical exhaustion, bishop Baraniak was later transferred to a Salesian house in Marszałki near Ostrzeszów in Poland and subjected to house arrest. He stayed there from December 29th, 1955 to April 1rd, 1556. From Marszałki the bishop went to sanatorium in Krynica where he managed to improve his health condition ruined by the period of imprisonment. The article deals with the Salesians’ concern about bishop Antoni Baraniak during his internment in Marszałki.