Today we commemorate the memory of 108 Polish martyrs of World War II, who were beatified by John Paul II in 1999. Among them are not only our Carmelites – Hilary Januszewski O.Carm. and Alphonsus Mazurek OCD, but also Maria Antonina Kratochvílová, the patroness of the Diocese of Ostrava-Opava.
Maria was born in 1881 in Ostrava-Vítkovice, spending her childhood in an orphanage of the Poor School Sisters, into whose congregation she later entered herself. As a young teacher, she taught in various schools of the congregation, for example in Karviná or Lviv. From 1940, she was the superior of the community in Mikuličin, Ukraine. The area had been occupied by the Soviet Union since 1939, and the local Polish population was forcibly deported to Siberia. Sister Maria Antonina organized aid for the deported – sending packages with clothing and food to them. After the Nazi German invasion of the Soviet Union, the area came under the control of the German army, which disapproved of such solidarity with the Poles designated for extermination just like the Soviet occupiers. In July 1942, Maria Antonina, along with six other sisters, was arrested, imprisoned in Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk), and interrogated and tortured for three months. On the brink of death, she was released on September 26, 1942, and died five days later, on October 2, 1942.
