Niepokalanów, what to see: Museum of St Maximilian

While visiting Niepokalanów, it is well worth stepping into the Museum of St. Maximilian, which invites pilgrims on a journey through time. It all began in an empty field where, in the summer of 1927, a modest statue of the Immaculate Conception was erected. From those visionary and arduous beginnings emerged an imposing Franciscan friary and publishing complex—one of the largest of its kind before the outbreak of World War II. Our museum, titled „There Was a Man,” is housed in a historic building that once served as the friary’s laundry and carpentry workshop. It was consecrated by Cardinal Józef Glemp and opened to the public in August 1998.

In the first room, which recounts the history of the friary, pilgrims are greeted by the founder himself—St. Maximilian. His bronze likeness, crafted by the Italian sculptor Roberto Joppolo of Viterbo, was blessed by Pope John Paul II during the canonization ceremonies in October 1982. This statue was later cast in several copies and sent to Poland, Japan, and America.

Crossing into the next hall, we are transported to the early 20th century. Reproductions of pre-war photographs depict the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe—from his childhood and youth through his studies, to his extensive publishing and missionary work in Poland and Japan. Further archival materials document the step-by-step creation and operation of the great „Friary-Publisher” known as Niepokalanów. It is remarkable to observe how efficiently the entire complex was managed in terms of logistics, featuring a modern printing house and its own Volunteer Fire Department.

The next part of the exhibition carries the visitor on a long journey to Asia. It is here that the museum reveals the missionary face of Father Kolbe. In Nagasaki, Father Maximilian founded a new friary, naming it „Mugenzai no Sono” (The Garden of the Immaculate); it was also in Nagasaki that the Japanese edition of „The Knight of the Immaculate” (Seibo no Kishi) was born. The witnesses to those times are not only the gathered everyday objects and mementos from the Far East. Preserved letters and photographs serve as a history lesson, illustrating the hardships of adaptation and human communication in an environment so culturally distinct from Poland.

The final stage of the museum is the most poignant. It features a replica of St. Maximilian’s second monastic cell, where he lived from his return from Japan (mid-1936) until the day of his arrest (February 1941). Here, mementos from the Second World War are gathered: a prisoner’s striped uniform, personal effects, and paintings by former inmate Mieczysław Kościelniak, documenting the daily reality of life in Auschwitz.

Yet, the exhibition does not merely overwhelm with the suffering and sacrifice of Father Maximilian’s life for another. Mementos showing his posthumous fame and his proclamation as a saint by the Polish Pope (October 10, 1982) demonstrate the triumph of the spirit even within the hell of a concentration camp. Maximilian—priest, friar, media publisher, missionary, and martyr—walked through life according to the motto that guided him: „I must be a saint—as great as possible.”