His Salesian journey
Having completed his secondary education at Valdocco, Turin, in 1897, he entered the novitiate of the Salesian Society in Ivrea. He made his first religious profession on 3 October 1899. He subsequently studied philosophy and theology in Turin. He served as secretary to the Rector Major, Fr Michael Rua, and collaborated with Fr Vittorio Grabelski on the editing of the “Notizie Salesiane” in Polish. On 6 June 1903, he was ordained a priest in Turin Cathedral by Cardinal Agostino Richelmy.
On his return to Poland, he was entrusted with organising the novitiate at the new Salesian house in Daszawa. After its opening, he became chaplain at the Lubomirski Institute in Kraków. In 1905, he was appointed Rector of the Oświęcim Institute, taking over the post from the first Rector of the work, Fr Emanuele Manassero. Thanks to his commitment and that of Fr Manassero, the Oświęcim Institute was able to secure the creation of an image of Mary Help of Christians for the church dedicated to her.
In 1911, the then Rector Major, Fr Paul Albera, appointed him Rector of the House in Krakow, at the Lubomirski Institute on Rakowicka Street, now the site of the University Faculty of Economics. In 1914, he provided care for wounded soldiers at that institute. In 1915, he organised assistance in Oświęcim, in the Zasole area, for war refugees from Eastern Galicia.
In 1918, he founded the first Salesian mission in the territories of the former Russian Partition, in Kielce, becoming its first Rector and parish priest. In 1923 he returned to Oświęcim, where he organised the 25th anniversary of Salesian activity in Poland and the first pilgrimage of the Salesian Cooperators to Rome. In 1924 he served as a missionary in America for seven months. From November 1925 to October 1934 he was Director and parish priest in Przemyśl. On 15 August 1934, he was appointed Rector of the house in Lviv, at the Church of Our Lady of Ostra Brama. A serious illness interrupted his work, but by July 1938 he had resumed his pastoral ministry as parish priest of the parish of St Stanislaus Kostka in Krakow and Rector of the local Salesian community.
The arrest
On 23 May 1941, in Krakow, on the eve of the feast of Mary Help of Christians, he was arrested along with other confreres. From the house on Konfederacka Street, they were all transferred to Montelupich Prison in Kraków. Subsequently, in a convoy together with the Krakow intelligentsia and Jews, on 26 June 1941 the prisoners were led, chained in pairs, from Montelupich prison to the Auschwitz extermination camp. There were twelve Salesians: 11 priests and 1 Salesian Brother. In the roll-call square, their handcuffs were removed and they were assigned to the punishment company in the death block.
The commander of the punishment company, a grim-looking SS officer, asked each new arrival their profession. When he received the reply “Catholic priest”, he became particularly enraged: he would kick them in the stomach, beat their faces and heads with his whip until blood streamed down their necks and backs. He would shout: “Priest, thief, hypocrite!”; then he would deliver a “welcome speech”, concluding with the invective: “You’ll all die here, you dogs and pigs! Your only hope is the crematorium.”
Martyrdom and death
The following day, the prisoners set off for work. The penal company worked in the gravel pits. The priests and Jews were separated and placed under the special supervision of the SS and sadistic Kapos. Each received an iron wheelbarrow, a shovel and a pickaxe. The work consisted of breaking up stones and gravel with the pickaxe, loading them onto the wheelbarrows and transporting them to a pit eight metres deep. The work had to be carried out “at a run”, under the supervision of special foremen armed with sticks. They beat the prisoners mercilessly and were particularly vicious towards the priests. Before long, their hands were covered in bleeding sores and exhaustion took hold of their aching bones.
The first to collapse was Father Jan Świerc, who heard the cruel kapo say: “You don’t want to work! I’ll help you now!” and with the heavy handle he struck him on the head and back. Father Świerc grabbed a wheelbarrow laden with heavy stones and slowly made his way towards the pit, whilst the kapo walked behind him, pressing him on and striking him with terrible blows. Every time the poor man fell to the ground, he forced him to get up again with kicks. Father Świerc felt that the final moments of his life were drawing near. With every blow he sighed: “O Jesus, Jesus”, which infuriated the kapo even further. “Now I’ll show you Jesus!” he shouted. “There is no God here! He won’t snatch you from my hands!”
At one point he struck him with all his might across the face with a stiff whip, so violently that his eye popped out of its socket. It hung limply from his cheek, held in place by a single tendon, whilst a trickle of blood flowed from the dark eye socket. His mangled face was covered in congealed blood, presenting a horrific sight. Father Świerc was still alive and praying. Muffled moans escaped his lips: “O Jesus, have mercy on me!” The blood-stained kapo decided to deliver the fatal blow to his victim. He lifted him off the ground and, with all his strength, hurled him onto the wheelbarrow full of stones, breaking his spine; then, he crushed his dangling head with a stone.
Father Świerc was dead. His body was carried on a wheelbarrow to the crematorium. He was the first victim of that memorable day. He died in the infamous gravel pit, on the second day of his stay in the camp. He passed to the Lord to receive the reward for his fidelity to his Salesian and priestly vocation.
Fr Jan Świerc died on 27 June 1941, aged 64, after 42 years of religious vows and 38 years of priesthood. He bore the camp registration number 17352.
Process of beatification
Fr Jan Świerc is one of the 122 Servants of God for whom, on 17 September 2003, the second phase of the beatification process was initiated for the second group of Polish martyrs of the Second World War. On 24 May 2011, in Pelplin, the diocesan phase was concluded and all the documentation was forwarded to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome.
The Positio was delivered on 21 July 2022, and the relator was Father Szczepan Tadeusz Praśkiewicz OCD. The Postulator of the cause is Fr Pierluigi Cameroni, General Postulator for the Causes of the Saints of the Salesian Family, who is working in collaboration with Dr Mariafrancesca Oggianu.
On Tuesday 28 March 2023, the historical consultors of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued a favourable opinion on the Positio suppletiva super martyrio of Fr Jan Świerc and his eight companions, priests of the Society of St Francis de Sales, killed in odium fidei in German extermination camps in the years 1941–1942. On 24 October 2025, Pope Leo XIV ordered the publication of the Decree on martyrdom and its inclusion in the acts of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Two videos have been produced on Fr. Świerc, both available in three languages
Video I:
Video II:
{gallery}PLS – Verso Beatificazione Don Swierc 2026{/gallery}
