de Nicola Center and McGrath Institute screen movie on Saint Maximilian Kolbe
On Wednesday, October 29, the McGrath Institute for Church Life partnered with the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture (dCEC) to screen Triumph of the Heart, a movie depicting the martyrdom of Saint Maximillian Kolbe, O.F.M. Conv. at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The movie is a production of Sherwood Fellows, a marketing company. Of the 500,000 dollar budget, 160,000 dollars came from a Kickstarter campaign, making it the largest crowd-funded Catholic film to date.
Shea Nowicki, a graduate student in the Notre Dame Master of Divinity program, suggested the screening. In a comment to the Rover, dCEC Senior Associate Director Margaret McManaway said that “[Nowicki] was inspired by its depiction of the true, the good, and the beautiful, and thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for students to reflect on those themes through the medium of film.”
The film opened with St. Kolbe’s act of sacrifice at Auschwitz-Birkenau as ten prisoners are condemned to death. One of the men chosen, Franciszek Gajowniczek, broke down crying, afraid to leave his family fatherless. Seeing this, Kolbe stepped forward, volunteering to die in the man’s place. Nowicki recalled how “deeply beautiful” and “mesmerizing” the face of St. Maximilian Kolbe was with a “glow of love that [shone] in every single encounter.”
Most of the movie then unfolds in a starvation bunker. At first, the other prisoners quarreled, and even tried to end their lives. Over the course of the movie, St. Maximilian Kolbe worked to bring hope to his fellow prisoners, culminating in St. Maximilian Kolbe leading them in “Rota,” a Polish patriotic hymn, with their defying melody echoing through the barracks of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In the end, the Nazis could not extinguish the comradery and unity that Maximillian Kolbe fostered in the prisoners. They died united: 9 from starvation, and St. Maximilian Kolbe from lethal injection.
Elliot Kirwan, a senior physics major, told the Rover, “Triumph of the Heart was a gut-wrenching masterpiece. It brilliantly portrayed the humanity of the prisoners at Auschwitz by embracing the tension between their horrific suffering and the heroic sacrifice of St. Maximilian Kolbe.”
He continued, “Especially striking was the courage of the prisoners to resist the attempt to crush their dignity, following Kolbe’s example in singing praises to God throughout their suffering… [it is a] stunning reminder that no evil is enough to separate us from the love of God who went so far as to suffer for us and with us.”
The life of St. Maximillian lives on posthumously. In an interview with the Rover, post-production screening and development coordinator for Triumph of the Heart, Lauren Abyta, a recent graduate of the masters in architecture program, told the Rover, “We ended up preselling 40,000 tickets nationwide, 500 theaters or 523 screenings” with “a hundred or so theaters booked in Poland.”
Abyta continued, “[we wanted to] give a gift to the Polish people, to be true to the culture and true to St. Maximilian Kolbe. The movie is addressed to the friend next to you. There’s that line: ‘What good was that singing, did it save my wife?’ St. Maximilian Kolbe goes, maybe it didn’t save her, but maybe it showed her she’s not alone. I would say that sums up the work.”
Triumph of the Heart is available for streaming purchase at https://www.triumphoftheheart.com/streaming.
Artur Krutel is a proudly Polish sophomore hailing from Chicago and majoring in neuroscience and behavior. When he is not air-balling three pointers, he can be found riding around campus without a seat on his bike. He can be reached at akrutel@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: Sherwood Fellows
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