A piece of Polish anti-fascism in the heart of Dresden

When Marian Sobkowiak visited Dresden for the first time at the age of 15, he and 68 other men from his home town of Gostyń, Poland, were sentenced to camp imprisonment. The National Socialists executed 12 of the main defendants, including his cousin Jan Kaźmierzcak, who was two years older, by guillotine on Munich Square.

German families had always lived in Gostyń in the 1930s, but when Germany invaded Poland, the German Armed Forces dominated everyday life. Soldiers arbitrarily arrested a certain number of men every day, only to release them the next day and exchange them for new prisoners. They served as hostages in case of an attack against the Germans.

The two teenagers Marian and Jan became members of the anti-fascist resistance group “Black Legion”. The group felt closely connected to the Catholic Church and the Polish nation and swore an oath to them. The members observed German posts, procured ammunition and explosives and practiced using weapons. They wanted to fight for Poland's independence. This was not a safe undertaking - they were eventually arrested. On the day of his execution, June 24, 1942, Jan wrote to his parents once again, expressing an astonishing faith in God:

Dear parents!

All praise to Jesus Christ!

Reconcile yourselves to the will of God, for I go confidently to death into eternity with the hope that God will receive us into the kingdom of heaven. [...] There, in the kingdom of heaven, we will all meet again. [...]

Your son Kaźmierczak Jan

Sit down with your eyes on the altar and look at the scene carved in stone. What do you see?

The sculptor Johann Christian Feige wanted to depict the message of God's mercy in this painting and shows Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. His disciples are asleep while the Roman soldiers are already approaching.

At the same time, the sculptor also gives us an insight into how much Jesus was both God and man: a Jew in an occupied country who is about to be arrested and executed, who anxiously turns to God and prays for his life. The resurrection of Christ is not depicted in the altar. We need to hope in faith that life is stronger than death.

Marian Sobkowiak even lived through death. For three years, he had to unravel the shoes of murdered Jews in Sachsenhausen concentration camp and search them for valuables before he was sent on one of the death marches in 1945. He was finally liberated in Mecklenburg.

Throughout his life, Marian felt guilty for being one of the few to have survived. In the decades that followed, he traveled to Dresden almost every year and campaigned for the memory of the executed resistance fighters.

We are very proud to be able to bear his legacy in stone here at the Frauenkirche. He collected €17,500 in Gostyń. The city commissioned the Polish sculptor Henryk Skudlarski to produce a vase of flames for the dome of the Frauenkirche. The so-called “Flame of Reconciliation” was handed over in Dresden in 1999.

Today, Gostyń's vase of flames rises up on the stair tower C next to the dome and carries the memory of Marian and Jan beyond their deaths into our city.