Saint Maximilian Kolbe

St. Maximilian M. Kolbe (1894-1941) was a Polish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Born in Poland, he founded the Militia Immaculatae, a Catholic evangelization movement, and the monastery of Niepokalanów, one of the largest Catholic publishing houses in the pre-war period. Arrested by the Nazi regime, he was sent to Auschwitz, where he offered his life to save another prisoner, and was killed in a starvation bunker. He is venerated as the "Martyr of Charity" and the patron saint of drug addicts, political prisoners, families, and the pro-life movement.