Michał Kozal

After his ordination, Father Kozal exercised his ministry as a vicar in several parishes, notably in Kościelec, Pobiedziska, and Krostkowo. He quickly distinguished himself by his pastoral zeal, his piety, and his dedication to teaching catechism. Appointed prefect and teacher at the Catholic girls' gymnasium in Bydgoszcz, he deployed intense educational activity there and also took care of the spiritual assistance of blind people.

In 1927, Cardinal August Hlond, Primate of Poland, appointed him spiritual director of the Gniezno seminary. Two years later, on September 25, 1929, he became its rector. He assumed this office with wisdom and rigor until 1939, forming a generation of priests deeply attached to their vocation.

On June 10, 1939, Pope Pius XII appointed him titular bishop of Lappa and auxiliary bishop of Włocławek. He received episcopal consecration on August 13, 1939, in the cathedral of Włocławek at the hands of the diocesan bishop, Mgr Karol Mieczysław Radoński. A few weeks later, on September 1, 1939, the invasion of Poland by Nazi troops triggered the Second World War. Mgr Radoński being forced into exile by the occupier, Mgr Kozal assumed the office of administrator of the diocese. He refused to flee in order to remain with his faithful, protesting energetically against Nazi exactions and the closing of churches.

On November 7, 1939, Bishop Kozal was arrested by the Gestapo along with the priests and seminarians of his diocese. Initially incarcerated in the Włocławek prison under extremely harsh conditions, he was transferred in January 1940 to the Salesian monastery in Ląd nad Wartą, where he was placed under house arrest. Despite pressure and offers of conditional release in exchange for renouncing his ecclesiastical duties, he remained inflexible. On April 3, 1941, he was deported and transferred through several prisons (Inowrocław, Poznań, Berlin, Halle, Weimar, Nuremberg) before being interned on April 25, 1941, at the Dachau concentration camp (prisoner number 24544). In this camp, which had become the primary site for the extermination of the European clergy, Bishop Kozal endured privations, forced labor, and humiliations with heroic patience. He continued to clandestinely exercise his ministry as a pastor, hearing confessions, comforting his fellow captives, and sharing his meager food rations with the weakest. At the beginning of 1943, weakened by the mistreatment, he contracted typhus.

Considered a danger by the camp authorities due to his moral and spiritual authority over the prisoners, Bishop Kozal was transferred to the camp infirmary (the Revier). On January 26, 1943, he was murdered there by a lethal injection of phenol (carbolic acid) administered by a camp orderly. His body was cremated in the Dachau crematorium on January 30, 1943, and his ashes were scattered.

From the end of the war, the reputation of his martyrdom spread widely. The diocesan informative process for his beatification opened in Włocławek in 1960 and closed in 1964. The decree on the validity of the process was published on September 27, 1986. On May 8, 1987, Pope John Paul II promulgated the decree recognizing his martyrdom in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith).

Bishop Michał Kozal was solemnly beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 14, 1987, in Warsaw, during the closing of the Polish National Eucharistic Congress.

The spirituality of Blessed Michał Kozal is based on an intimate union with the suffering Christ and absolute fidelity to the Church. Nicknamed the "master of martyrs" by his fellow captives in Dachau, he embodied strength of soul in the face of totalitarian barbarism. His famous maxim, recalled by Pope Francis, summarizes his spiritual stance: "More than the defeat of arms, it is the crollo (collapse) of the human spirit that frightens, and he who doubts becomes involuntarily the ally of the enemy." He is today venerated as the patron of the Diocese of Bydgoszcz, the city of Krotoszyn, and Włocławek. His example also paved the way for the collective beatification of the 108 Polish martyrs of the Second World War in 1999, of whom he is considered the precursor and model.