1942 - Bernard Polefka

December 21, 1942

Xinxiang, Henan

Bernard Polefka was a Jesuit missionary-priest martyred in China during World War II. Originally from the region of Silesia (straddling parts of present-day Poland and the Czech Republic), Polefka grew up in Bohrek in southern Poland. Growing up in a multi-lingual region, Polefka entered the noviate at St. Gabriel near Vienna, Austria, where he was ordained a priest in 1939. That same year he was appointed to missionary service with the Jesuits in Gansu Province, China, and he left for his new home in the fall of 1940, travelling overland through Siberia.

Due to the outbreak of war Polefka was not able to travel to Gansu, so he contented himself with studying Chinese while he waited for the door to open. In 1941 he relocated to the main Jesuit base at Xinxiang in northern Henan Province, where he assisted the other missionaries. In November four Italian missionaries were murdered in nearby Fengqiu County, and Christians everywhere were tense. Thomas Megan, the Apostolic Prefect at Xinxiang, tried to reassure his colleagues, writing, “We are all well, and we want to hold out until the end. We do not intend to abandon the ship, although at present we have rough seas.”[1]

On December 21, 1942, Polefka and a Chinese coworker set out on their bicycles to celebrate St. Thomas Day with the Catholics at nearby Hotun. It was later reported that Polefka had an uneasy feeling about making the trip, but went anyway, preferring to obey his superior. A fellow priest, Bernard Kowalski, reported, “At seven o’clock, the night before the feast…two men in civilian clothes arrived and wanted to talk with the priest immediately. They said they were soldiers of the National Army. They took Father Polefka and his companion away and seized their bicycles.”[2]

It was not until late-January 1943 that a clearer picture began to emerge of Bernard Polefka’s fate. A Chinese Catholic priest named Lu investigated the disappearance of the Polish priest and his Chinese co-worker, and reported that the two had been buried alive. Their bodies were never found.