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Aloysius Liguda (January 23, 1898 – December 8, 1942), was a priest and is venerated as a blessed martyr of the Society Of The Divine Word Missionaries (SVD). Liguda was a chaplain, and teacher. He died at Dachau concentration camp in the course of medical experimentation.
/ref> His father used to lead pilgrimages to the Basilica of the Visitation in Wambierzyce and to Mount St. Anne. Liguda was a good student; he became interested in the missions in China and Africa from reading magazines."Blessed Fr. Alojzy Liguda, SVD", Society of the Divine Word (curia)
/ref> At the age of fifteen, Liguda entered the Divine Word minor seminary at Nysa. He was drafted in 1917 and sent to the French front as an artilleryman. After the war, he returned to the seminary to complete his studies. In 1920 he went to the Society of the Divine Word novitiate in
/ref> In February 1940, the seminary was turned into a makeshift detention camp for the religious and seminarians. He was sent from one camp to another: Nowy Port in Gdańsk, Sachsenhausen, and Stutthof. By December he was in Dachau, and since he knew German, he was a translator for most of the internees. After the war, it turned out that he could successfully apply for release from the camp. The family had German citizenship, he himself was a war veteran, and two brothers died at the front. Liguda did not apply because he felt responsible for his Polish pupils. Always he tried to keep up morale with his calm demeanor and a ready joke. Liguda had contracted tuberculosis but by December 1942 his health had much improved. Nonetheless, he was placed on the "disabled" list by a kapo in revenge for Liguda's criticism of the kapo's unfair distribution of food. Liguda and fellow inmates were transported by German soldiers to a nearby water reservoir where they all drowned. The Germans were conducting medical experiments to determine the effect of ice cold water on the human body, relative to the rescue of downed pilots. The family was advised, however, that the cause of death was tuberculosis.
His body was burnt in the Dachau crematorium; the coffin with ashes was handed over to relatives and buried in the family tomb. In 2016, some of the ashes, as well as those of other martyrs of the Dachau concentration camp were placed in the Church of the Holy Spirit in his hometown of Winów.
"In the Dachau prison camp near Munich in Germany, Blessed Louis Liguda, priest of the Society of the Divine Word and martyr, who, during the wartime invasion of Poland, was slain by the prison guards witness to Christ the Lord until death."(Roman Martyrology)"Beato Luigi Liguda Sacerdote e martire", Santi e Beati, December 14, 2013
/ref>
Life
Alojzy Liguda was born in Winów nearOpole
Opole (; ; ; ) is a city located in southern Poland on the Oder River and the historical capital of Upper Silesia. With a population of approximately 127,387 as of the 2021 census, it is the capital of Opole Voivodeship (province) and the seat of ...
, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
in 1892, the youngest of seven children of Wojciech and Rozalia Przybyl Liguda.Ogiolda, Krzysztof. "Prochy męczennika obozu Dachau będą czczone w Winowie", ''Nowa Trybuna Opolska'', December 10, 2016/ref> His father used to lead pilgrimages to the Basilica of the Visitation in Wambierzyce and to Mount St. Anne. Liguda was a good student; he became interested in the missions in China and Africa from reading magazines."Blessed Fr. Alojzy Liguda, SVD", Society of the Divine Word (curia)
/ref> At the age of fifteen, Liguda entered the Divine Word minor seminary at Nysa. He was drafted in 1917 and sent to the French front as an artilleryman. After the war, he returned to the seminary to complete his studies. In 1920 he went to the Society of the Divine Word novitiate in
Mödling
Mödling () is the capital of the Austrian Mödling (district), district of the same name located approximately 15 km south of Vienna.
Mödling lies in Lower Austria's industrial zone (Industrieviertel). The Mödlingbach, a brook which rises ...
, Austria. He was then sent for teacher training to Pieniezno, where he taught Latin and mathematics at the minor seminary. From there he returned to St. Gabriel's in Mödling for further studies in dogmatics and church history. At age 35, in 1927, he was ordained as a priest.
Liguda was assigned to the provincial house in Górna Grupa
Górna Grupa (Polish pronunciation: ) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Dragacz, within Świecie County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Dragacz, north-east of Świ ...
. After validating his secondary education certificate he was accepted to the Polish Philology Faculty at the University of Poznań
A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...
. In Poznań he also served a chaplain and religious education teacher at the Ursuline Sisters school for girls. He returned to Grupa and taught at the minor seminary; he also served as chaplain to the garrison in Grupa on Sundays. In the summer of 1939 he became the rector of the monastery at Gorna Grupa."Luís (Alojzy) Liguda e companheiros", Arquidiocese de São Paulo/ref> In February 1940, the seminary was turned into a makeshift detention camp for the religious and seminarians. He was sent from one camp to another: Nowy Port in Gdańsk, Sachsenhausen, and Stutthof. By December he was in Dachau, and since he knew German, he was a translator for most of the internees. After the war, it turned out that he could successfully apply for release from the camp. The family had German citizenship, he himself was a war veteran, and two brothers died at the front. Liguda did not apply because he felt responsible for his Polish pupils. Always he tried to keep up morale with his calm demeanor and a ready joke. Liguda had contracted tuberculosis but by December 1942 his health had much improved. Nonetheless, he was placed on the "disabled" list by a kapo in revenge for Liguda's criticism of the kapo's unfair distribution of food. Liguda and fellow inmates were transported by German soldiers to a nearby water reservoir where they all drowned. The Germans were conducting medical experiments to determine the effect of ice cold water on the human body, relative to the rescue of downed pilots. The family was advised, however, that the cause of death was tuberculosis.
His body was burnt in the Dachau crematorium; the coffin with ashes was handed over to relatives and buried in the family tomb. In 2016, some of the ashes, as well as those of other martyrs of the Dachau concentration camp were placed in the Church of the Holy Spirit in his hometown of Winów.
"In the Dachau prison camp near Munich in Germany, Blessed Louis Liguda, priest of the Society of the Divine Word and martyr, who, during the wartime invasion of Poland, was slain by the prison guards witness to Christ the Lord until death."(Roman Martyrology)/ref>
Works
* ''Audi filia'', - regardingPope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI (; born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, ; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939) was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 until his death in February 1939. He was also the first sovereign of the Vatican City State u ...
’s encyclical "About the Christian Education"
* ''Go forward and higher'' - conferences and sermons
* ''Bread and Salt'' - Sunday homilies
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Liguda, Alojzy 1898 births 1942 deaths 108 Blessed Polish Martyrs Polish beatified people 20th-century Polish Roman Catholic priests Polish people who died in Dachau concentration camp 20th-century venerated Christians Polish civilians killed in World War II People from Opole County Catholic saints and blesseds of the Nazi era