In 2004, I went on pilgrimage to Auschwitz with the UK’s Jewish-Christian Council. We met holocaust survivors, people working to restore Poland’s Jewish heritage – and, in the tiny village of Krasiczyn, the parish priest Father Stanislaw Bartminski; a quiet, self-effacing man, with a gentle sense of humour, an unimposing determination, and a clear sense of calling
In his small corner of the world, Father Stanislaw was a pioneer and a prophet for reconciliation. Through advocacy and action he proclaimed his conviction in a common humanity, a shared story.
Father Stanislaw emerged publicly as an advocate for reconciliation when villagers planned to erect a memorial to those who’d died in the Second World War. Villagers intended naming only ethnic Poles, but Father Stanislaw argued that it should honour all those who’d died, regardless of ethnicity or the side of the conflict on which they’d found themselves. Discussion deteriorated into fierce argument on who was to blame – with the corollary that ‘the guilty’ should not be named. In the end, no-one was named; the memorial created with only a simple inscription.
Later, Father Stanislaw championed the restoration of the village’s Jewish cemetery, destroyed by the Nazis in 1942. With anti-Semitism still rooted deeply in the village psyche, most refused to help. And so Father Stanislaw, his sister and the children of Solidarity activists he was hosting did the work themselves.
This is what Father Stanislaw has taught me about reconciliation –
Firstly, reconciliation matters in every place, for everyone. Just 440 people live in Father Stainslaw’s village. Not many have power or reach beyond that tiny community and their own families: a conversion of their hearts to peace, an engagement of their imaginations to find in their enemies someone to love was never going to change the world – and yet it was on these few that Father Stanislaw focused. He recognised that their conversion mattered whether or not this impacted beyond Krasiczyn’s parish boundaries; that one human heart reconciled to another matters. (‘Do the little things’, St David is purported to have said.)
What a challenge this is to me when, through pride or ambition or in longing for a legacy, I want to find a big stage, a headline moment. Instead, wherever I find myself, even with just one other person, reconciliation matters. Do the little things. The Corrymeela Community’s Daily Prayer by Padraig O Tuama contains a simple declaration: ‘We will live the life that we are living.’ Here is who I am. Here is where I am called to be a reconciler; in this life that I am living.
Secondly, reconciliation is a process as much shaped by apparent ‘failure’ as by ‘success’; for the long-haul, not the quick fix. In discussions on the war memorial, Father Stanislaw tried to persuade his parishioners to inscribe and honour every name. They refused. Did Father Stanislaw fail? On a results-based matrix, yes, but in the generous seed planting, imperceptible seed germination of the kingdom – no. Father Stanislaw had broken open a conversation, introduced an idea, reframed a single story with multiple voices. His was an iterative process, which he picks up again in the restoration of the Jewish cemetery. And when people refuse to help? – then he goes again. And again.
How uncomfortable this is for us, located as we are in our quick-fix, instant access societies; when our performance is measured against objectives and church health measured in terms of numbers. How counter-cultural to accept that ‘results’ might not be seen in this generation or even the next; that life might come only after death.
Finally, Father Stanislaw showed me the place of the prophetic in reconciliation; that when people are not ready to come with you on a journey, sometimes you just need to live it out yourself, become the words of reconciliation made flesh.
7 comments
Thank you, Mary. I loved reading your reflection. I found the emphasis on the simple and the particular to be particularly encouraging. My ambitions, envy, and desire for significance often leave me feeling discouraged. It’s a beautiful reminder for me.
Mary I appreciate the way you have made sense of the ‘failure’ of Father Stanislaw; we are indeed ‘shaped’ by failure and it can be a vital part of our growth and learning. I like the reminder that we need to step aside from the pressure to provide a ‘quick fix’ and should think about offering a counter cultural appraoch.
What an inspiring story of Father Stanislaw! Thank you for your challenging words too. I need constantly reminded where I am, is where I need to be.
‘We will live the life that we are living.’ Here is who I am. Here is where I am called to be a reconciler; in this life that I am living’. I love this!
I think I need to carry these words with me on my pilgrimage as a reminder, that when my head drops from lacking confidence, or thinking I’m not knowledgeable enough, I’m able to say ‘Here is who I am’!
Mary, Your beautiful witness of a man who so deeply understood reconciliation–that we all need healing–touches me. Courage to stand up in the crowd to call to account is Father Stanislaw’s witness that we can bring into our own journey everyday. It calls me to account. Thank you for sharing.
Mary. What a beautiful post. Thank you for gifting us with this moment in your formation. Thanks, too, for revealing the subversive, gritty, relational realities of peacemaking as embodied by Father Stanislaw. I resonate so deeply with your first core learning about peacemaking occuring within the moments and places in which we find ourselves. I’m struck by how often the work of peacemaking and reconciliation are mis-categorized as solely the stuff of sensational diplomacy that occurs “over there” by professional humanitarians and politicians. In my view (and experience) the work is far more proximate…everyday…even mundane. The invitation, dare I suggest the urgent need, is for Everyday Peacemakers who know how to do the work of peacemaking wherever our feet are planted. I do wonder what our world will look like when we choose to make peace within our own wingspans.
This speaks to me in many ways, not least because of my slavophilia, which led me to drive the length of the Czech part of the iron curtain in 2020, with a brief detour into Germany to visit Flossenburg concentration camp. I began my journey in Prague at Bubny railway station, which was used for the transports during the Shoah. Yes, the planting of a seed is often enough to change the hearts of many – and especially so when that seed is one of accepting and embracing those who are apparently different from ourselves or of reframing the narrative through another perspective.
When the small town of Lidice (modern-day Czech Republic) was razed to the ground by the SS, towns all across the globe renamed themselves Lidice as part of the ‘Lidice shall live’ campaign. The site of the former Lidice is now a large memorial museum yet what touched me was not the perpetually-burning flame or the statue of the town’s children, not even the harrowing multimedia presentation; it was the literal planting of seeds – in the form of a rose garden, from which the undulating landscape of the former town alongside a small lake can be seen. In this idyllic natural setting, unspeakable crimes against its population took place and that juxtaposition was too much for me to bear. The symbol of Lidice, a burnt rose, encapsulates this aggression against a quiet and rural town perfectly for me. Sometimes, it is not the grand gestures that demonstrate compassion but the quiet, gentle memoria; I barely noticed the landscape of Lidice until I had passed through the museum and statuary, which I was so obsessed with photographing that I quite missed its significance. Once I saw the landscape of that quiet little town, I wept.
Just as the silent planting and germination of those seeds of reconciliation opened a conversation that might otherwise have remained buried but did not change the world beyond one village, we must not judge our success as people of faith by the outward growth of our churches alone. Inward growth, change and reconciliation as individuals is equally important in order that we be ready to invite others in, just as you were invited into that village and spread the news of Fr. Stanislaw’s work to each of us.
Thank you for sharing Lidice’s story, Franceska – so moving. And the burnt rose is such a powerful image.