POLISH PRIEST DACHAU MEMENTOES POLAND

POLISH PRIEST DACHAU MEMENTOES POLAND
Commemorative album and letter from Dachau. Mementoes of a Polish priest, Teodor Korcz, a prisoner of the Dachau concentration camp. The set includes a letter written from the camp to his mother in 1943, as well as an album. The album was made by a priest after the war. It contains pasted photos - reproductions of the camp book with the name of the prisoner under the number 28 400. Then there are reproductions of scenes of execution in the camp. Then individual, real photos from a trip to the camp after the war. Further on, there are photos of the priestly service. Teodor Korcz was born on November 8, 1903 in Poznań. Before World War I, he attended school for three years, but after mobilizing his father and brother, he quit his studies because he had to work in a company. Despite the difficult financial situation of his family, he began attending gymnasium. Jan Kanty in Poznań. During Ignacy Paderewski's stay in Poznań, on December 27, 1918, he participated in a great procession of Polish children to the Bazaar. Then he became the home teacher of chamberlain Potworowski in Gola, and for two years he attended a private gymnasium in Gostyń, where he obtained his secondary school-leaving examination in 1927. In the same year he entered the Theological Seminary. He was ordained on June 12, 1932 in the Poznań cathedral by Cardinal August Hlond. For three years he worked as a vicar in Międzychód, and for a year in the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and St. Florian in Poznań. On March 1, 1936, he was appointed vicar of Ostrów with the obligation of residence at the church in Gorzyce Wielkie, and two months later the administrator of the newly established parish of Gorzyce Wielkie in the deanery of Ostrów Wielkopolski. He contributed to the unification of the new parish and stimulation of religious life. Together with parishioners, he started the construction of a new temple, which was covered with a roof until 1939. The parish priest actively participated in all the physical works, allocating most of his personal income to the construction. On October 6, 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Konstantynów near Łódź. Three weeks later he was sent to the concentration camp in Dachau, where he was given the number 28466. He worked in the heaviest commandos, and additionally was subjected to pseudoscientific painting experiments. He was a block supervisor for over 700 Polish priests. He comforted others and encouraged them to persevere. He especially cared for the sick and aged priests. Many priests owed him that they had survived the camp. After the liberation of the camp, he returned to Poland and took up the post of parish priest in Gorzyce. He started to complete the construction of the parish church, which was consecrated in 1949. Earlier, in April 1948, he was appointed administrator of the Wierzbno parish. He took on the burden of organizing religious life and building the organizational foundations of the new community. On September 1, 1950 he was transferred to the position of administrator of the parish of St. Nicholas in Leszno. For many years he was also the dean of Leszno. He was involved in organizing meetings, conventions and pilgrimages of priests - prisoners of Dachau. In 1959 he was appointed the Pope's secret chamberlain, and in 1977 he was awarded the title of an honorary papal prelate. He died on October 17, 1981 in Poznań. He was buried in Leszno. A street in Gorzyce Wielkie and a primary school in Topola Mała were named after him.