Cardinal Kozlowiecki

Name:

H.E. Adam Card. KOZLOWIECKI SJ

Position:

Archbishop Emeritus of Lusaka (Zambia)

Born:

Saturday, April 01, 1911

Died:

September 28, 2007 (Aged 96)

From:

Poland

Cardinal since:

Saturday, February 21, 1998

Title:

Cardinal Priest of S Andrea a Quirinale

A Polish Jesuit, Kozlowiecki was for half a century a missionary in Zambia. The new cardinal, despite his age, was still full of energy. He was born in Huta Konmorowska in southern Poland on April 1, 1911. He studied in Cracow and Lvov, which, along with the rest of western Ukraine, was part of Poland up until the Russian invasion of September 17, 1939. On November 10, 1939, he was arrested by Nazi SS officers together with 24 other priests in Cracow. He was taken first to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where he became number 1006, and then, in 1940, to the concentration camp in Dachau, from which he was not liberated until the end of the war. He became a missionary in Zambia, but when the country gained its independence, Kozlowiecki applied to the Holy See to be released from his responsibilities as archbishop of Lusaka. He thought that for the benefit of the Church an African should be appointed to perform such a duty.