Heroes: Jerzy Popieluszko, Who Died Thirty Years Ago This Week

It is good to be reminded that there are heroes in the world, and a lot more of them than we might think, and that their heroism expresses itself in all sorts of ways. In yesterday’s Heroes: Wide-eyed But Successful I put up a description of Reha Freier from Karl Stern’s The Pillar of Fire. Here’s another, Father Jerzy Popieluszko, whose death is described by Paul Kengor. The article begins:

It was October 19, 1984 — 30 years ago this week. A gentle, courageous, and genuinely holy priest, Jerzy Popieluszko, age 37, found himself in a ghastly spot that, though it must have horrified him, surely did not surprise him. An unholy trinity of three thugs from communist Poland’s secret police had seized and pummeled him. He was bound and gagged and stuffed into the trunk of their cream-colored Fiat 125 automobile as they roamed the countryside trying to decide where to dispatch him. This kindly priest was no less than the chaplain to the Solidarity movement, the freedom fighters who would ultimately prove fatal to Soviet communism — and not without Popieluszko’s stoic inspiration.