Stanisław Wiórek

Stanisław Wiórek or alternatively Stanisław Wiorek (12 December 1912 – 9 September 1939) was a Polish theologian and Catholic clergyman, member of the Congregation of the Mission, publicly murdered by the Nazis on the ninth day of the Second World War.

He has in recent years been accorded the title of Servant of God and is in the process of being beatified by the Catholic Church.

Life and death
Wiórek was born on 12 December 1912 in Bottrop in the extreme south-west corner of the then Province of Westphalia on 12 December 1912, and joined the Lazarists at Kraków in Poland in 1930. He studied theology at Kraków and subsequently at the Angelicum in Rome, where he took holy orders in 1938, the year before his death. According to some sources, he was ordained at Kraków in 1938, during the period of his studies in Italy, which were briefly interrupted for the purpose.

He returned from Rome to Poland in 1939, going directly to Bydgoszcz where he was supposed to take up ministry in the local church, in the Bielawki area of the city (see Bielawy). As after the Nazi invasion of Poland the Germans issued an ordinance requiring the registration of the population, Wiórek left the premises of his religious institute on Saturday, 9 September 1939, in company with another priest, Piotr Szarek (1908–1939), in order to complete the required formalities. While in a street outside, he was caught in a łapanka, a random rounding-up of Polish hostages in reprisal for what the Nazi prop&shy;a&shy;gan&shy;da portrayed as anti-German events of the so-called Bloody Sunday of 3 September 1939, six days earlier. The randomly detained passers-by were brought to Bydgoszcz's historic Old Market Square (the Stary Rynek), a prominent central place where they were displayed and harassed before twenty-five of them were summarily executed in public by a firing squad at about 12 noon. Wiórek was killed together with his companion, Piotr Szarek who, having shown signs of life after the salvo of shots rang out, was dealt an individual coup de grâce. Their bodies were displayed in the Old Market Square for six hours, from about 12 noon to 6 p.m. Stanisław Wiórek was twenty six years' old.

There is an eyewitness account of Wiórek's martyrdom given by Helena Kozłowska, a pharmacist who was working at the time in the Stary Rynek (Old Market Square). Wiórek's body, together with that of Szarek, is buried in the Cemetery of the Heroes of Bydgoszcz (Cmentarz Bohaterów Bydgoszczy) in Bydgoszcz.

Stanisław Wiórek is currently one of the 122 Polish martyrs of the Second World War who are included in the beatification process initiated in 1994, whose first beatifica&shy;tion session was held in Warsaw in 2003 (see Słudzy Boży). A person nominated for beatification receives within the Roman Cath&shy;o&shy;lic Church the title of "Servant of God"; once he is actually beatified he is accorded the title of "Venerable" and "Blessed", which are a prerequisite for saint&shy;hood conferred in a process known as canonization.

Wiórek's likeness is depicted pictorially in the stained-glass windows of the Church of Our Lady Revealing the Miraculous Medal located in the Olcza district of the city of Zakopane (the Parafia Najświętszej Maryi Panny Niepokalanej Objawiającej Cudowny Medalik).