Father Cassian: a hero to his people, Catholic Leader, Brisbane, 25 November 1973, p 3:

Archbishop Rush presided and preached at a Requiem Mass in Our Lady of Victories Church, Bowen Hills, last Wednesday, for the late Fr Cassian Wolak, OFM Cap, who was one of the few priest survivors of the infamous German concentration camp, Dachau, and who has been regarded as a hero of the Polish people, both in Australia and in his homeland.

Fr Cassian died in Holy Spirit Hospital last Saturday after a long illness.

At the obsequies, Archbishop Rush was principal concelebrant of the Requiem Mass. Among the large number of concelebrants was a former inmate of Dachau and life-long friend, Mgr L. Jaroszka, of Geelong, Vict, who also preached the homily at another Requiem Maas in Polish last Tuesday night.

Fr Cassian had been parish priest at Bowen Hills since 1956 and a chaplain to the Polish community in Brisbane.

He was born Stanislaus Wolak on November 8, 1913, in Plawo, Poland, and professed in the Capuchin Franciscan Order in 1930.

He was ordained in 1937 and then began studies for a Master's degree in philosophy at the Louvain University in Belgium.

In 1939, he returned to Poland for a holiday and while at the Capuchin Monastery at Rozwadow, was arrested by the Nazis as a political agent.

He was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, the largest of the camps, where four millions Jews, Russians, Poles and others were exterminated.

The Nazis, however, wanted to put all priests in the one place, and after six months, Fr Cassian was moved to the smaller camp, Dachau, where he remained until liberation in April, 1945.

While in Dachau, Fr Cassian became a victim of the medical research being carried out by the Nazis on "human guinea pigs" as they were known.

Fr Cassian always carried the scars on his body left by these torments. During part of this experimentation, the Nazis tested the effects of gangrene on him, from which he nearly died.

He survived, mainly due to a fellow prisoner, a Jesuit priest who gave Fr Cassian some of his blood in secret meetings during which the transfusions were somehow given "vein to vein."

Fr Cassian always regarded it with humor that he was half Capuchin and half Jesuit. The Jesuit, by the way, is still alive.

Since coming to Australia, Fr Cassian had been asked by the German High Court to return to Germany to give evidence against a man accused of being a member of the medical staff at Dachau.

He refused, on the grounds that after so long he would be unable to recognise anybody, and in any case, he was reluctant to talk about his days in the concentration camps.

In both camps, Fr Cassian was known as a humorist, a worker and a spiritual leader of his fellow prisoners. He was not averse to bribing guards to obtain food for others, although it nearly got him killed on several occasions, and he himself survived on almost nothing.

He told others later that as a Capuchin student in Poland, life was very strict, and he was trained to living on little food. In a sense, he would say, this prepared him for his years in the concentration camps.

He organised clergy choirs, was himself a cellist, and used to put on concerts and plays to keep up the spirits of his fellows.

In Dachau there were 35,606 Polish political prisoners. Of these, 1,770 were priests. All told, 10,000 Polish people died there and of these, 858 were priests.

There are today, five priests in Australia who were with Fr Cassian in Dachau. They are Mgr L. Jaroszka, Mgr W. Dzieciol (Perth), Fr J. Kuczmanski (SA), Fr F. Wozniczac (Vict) and Fr J. Koncki (Tasmania).

Mgr Jaroszka was in Brisbane for the concelebrated Mass for the Polish people on November 8 which honored Fr Cassian's 60th birthday. Fr Cassian was chief concelebrant and sang the whole Mass himself in Polish.

After his liberation in 1945, Fr Catalan volunteered to work in the tuberculosis hospital for prisoners-of-war and was later in charge of six such hospitals.

He caught tuberculosis himself and was then sent to Switzerland to recuperate. During 1949 and 1950 he worked as a chaplain to Polish migrants and then went to Louvain where he obtained a Master's degree "Summa Cum Laude," in the history of philosophy.

He then went to Cambridge to learn English in preparation for his work in Australia.

He came to Australia in 1954 and worked in Canberra for a year as chaplain to Polish migrants.

In 1956, he was appointed parish priest at Bowen Hills, and Polish chaplain.

During that time, Fr Cassian, who became an Australian citizen, won the respect and love of his people who, although he was always reluctant to speak about his past, regarded him as a hero of the Polish nation.

Dedicated to his people

He was known and respected by all who came in contact with him for his priestly zeal, self-sacrifice and spirit of dedication to his priesthood and his people.

Earlier this year, Fr Cassian made his first return visit to Poland since his arrest is 1939, and there be enjoyed a last holiday with his four sisters.

He had been in increasing ill-health for some time and had been hospitalised many times during the past year.

Fr Cassian was chaplain to members of the Polish Association of Queensland, and also to the officers and members of the Polish Ex-servicemen's Association (Queensland Division).

After the obsequies in Bowen Hills church, Fr Cassian was buried in Nudgee Cemetery.