Archdiocese of Adelaide, Biographies of deceased clergy, coordinated by Monsignor John Swann, available from https://adelaide.catholic.org.au/our-people/biographies-of-deceased-clergy, accessed on 6 November 2025:
Fr Josef Kuczmanski
Biography:

Early Life

Josef Kuczmanski was born at Gorzuchy in Poland on December 12, 1907. He received his early primary schooling at Gorzuchy and secondary education at Kalisz. His ecclesiastical studies were undertaken Wloclawek Seminary and received his Licentiate in Theology at Kraken University. He was ordained priest at Wloclawek on June 28, 1935.

Little is known of his work in Poland but during the Second World War he suffered extensively and was brutally tortured, leaving scars that stayed with him for life. He eventually escaped and came to Australia as a refugee, firstly to the Migrant Camp at Bonagilla. Initially his identity as a priest was not widely known, but when it was revealed he was able to move out of the camp and he came to Adelaide, arriving here on August 5, 1949.

Work in South Australia

On his arrival he was appointed Chaplain to the Polish community in Adelaide, many of whom were also coming as refugees from war torn Eastern Europe.

For more than seven years he lived at Archbishop’s House at West Terrace and worked diligently among the many Polish immigrants. In February 1957 he moved from West Terrace to live at the Polish Orphanage at Royal Park which had been established by the Resurrection Sisters to care for unaccompanied Polish children. As well as being chaplain at the home he continued to work among the Polish community. He shared this work with Fr Rutkowski who was also a post war refugee like Fr Kuczmanski.

Fr Kuczmanski was incardinated into the Archdiocese on November 25, 1965. Soon after this he took some leave and returned to Poland to join the celebration of the 1000 years of Christianity in Poland. In November 1967 he was appointed a member of the Diocesan Pastoral Council as a representative of the migrant communities.

Retirement

As his health was deteriorating he retired from active ministry on April 23, 1973 and went for a time to live in Geelong. Four months later he returned to Adelaide and took up residence at Villa Beovich at Myrtle Bank. 

He continued to have frequent contact with the Polish community which has become well established with two groups of Polish priests caring for them, the Resurrection Fathers and the Society of Christ who had also taken over use of the Church of the Resurrection at Wayville.

In 1984 Fr Kuczmanski again travelled to Poland for a holiday. However, soon after he returned he suffered a relapse in his health, suffered a heart attack and died in Flinders Hospital on October 13, 1984. His Funeral Mass, attended by a large number of the Polish community was celebrated in the Church of the Resurrection at Wayville on October 20, 1984.

Reproduced by permission of Monsignor John Swann and the Archdiocese of Adelaide.

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Poland to Adelaide via Dachau, Southern Cross, Adelaide, 26 August 1949, p 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article167726279:

A recently arrived Polish exile in Adelaide is Fr. Josef Kuczmanski, who spent five years in the notorious Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. Interviewed by "The Southern Cross," Fr. Kuczmanski gave an account of his imprisonment under the Nazi regime. It is a hideous story of cruelty and oppression.

Arrested
Fr. Kuczmanski was arrested on September 26, 1940, at Wienic, where he was Parish Priest. Given half an hour to put his personal and parochial affairs in order, he was taken into custody by the Gestapo, and with other clergy removed northwards to Szcyglin. He was then 33 years of age, and five years ordained.

For "Training"
It is of interest to record the reason given for Father's arrest. The Gestapo informed him—as also the majority of the Polish clergy—that he needed three months training in the ways of National Socialism, after which he would be returned to Poland and his previous duties. To many of the clergy this excuse brought death; to others, including Fr. Kuczmanski, five years of loathsome suffering.

At Oranienburg
At Szcyglin, Fr. Kuczmanski with about 70 other Priests—many of whom were feeble—were imprisoned in stables with loose straw—the only bedding. All the prisoners were deprived of their money, watches, and other valuables. After a short time, they were transferred to Oranienburg, 30 miles from Berlin, where the "training" in the ways of National Socialism really began. All the Priest-prisoners were stripped of their clerical dress and compelled to wear convict garb. The wearing of shoes, gloves, or hats was strictly forbidden. All were forced to work— irrespective of age—at carrying bricks from the brickyards to the place of building operations, a distance of seven miles. The food was dreadfully inadequate. No religious service of any kind was allowed, and the possession of Rosaries, medals, or any religious emblems was strictly forbidden under the direst penalties. The old and feeble Priests were deprived of their walking-sticks, which were used by the S.S. guards to beat them up. In less than three months, with the hardships of work, the bad food, the iron discipline, and continuous bashings, the majority of the old Priests died. The camp was ruled with an iron discipline. All talking, laughing, even nodding was forbidden, and punished by hours of standing at attention in the camp square, irrespective of the weather. If any one escaped, all the prisoners were paraded and kept at attention ALL day and ALL night. Many prisoners committed suicide by throwing themselves on the electrified barbed wire which bounded the perimeter of the camp. By far the most inhuman practice in the camp was that of COMPULSORY suicide. Weekly, names were drawn by lot and the prisoners in question were provided with a rope and ordered to hang themselves before the other prisoners at an appointed time and place.

At Dachau
After three months at Oranienburg, all the surviving Priests were entrained for an unknown destination. Many thought it was the return journey to Poland, as per the original promise of the Gestapo. The destination, however, was Dachau. Here commenced what Fr. Kuczmanski calls "the beginning of the life of death." After an all-day train journey without food or drink, the prisoners were marched in their bare feet through the snow to the camp six miles from the station. The first work assigned to the Priests was that of clearing the snow away. They also had to serve out the food rations to the other prisoners, which meant carrying the food TWO miles from the camp cookhouse. If any got lost on the way, the amount was taken out of their own rations. During the spring, summer, and part of the autumn, they labored long, weary hours in the fields on the poorest of food rations. When not engaged in the fields, they were employed on the most menial jobs about the camp. Everything that Nazi brains could devise was done to degrade them as human beings and insult their priesthood. Discipline was of the most terroristic kind. Mere suspicion of its violation was enough to incur punishment. For instance, to look or gaze around at work was interpreted as idleness, for which there was the punishment of the beam. The unfortunate prisoner was stripped, hands tied behind his back, chains were put under his armpits, pulled over a horizontal beam, and the prisoner raised off the ground, was left suspended in that painful position for hours, during which time he was also flogged. According to Fr. Kuczmanski, the most sinister aspect of Dachau was the medical experiments conducted on the prisoners, as a result of which thousands died. The professor of medicine from Munich who operated this section of the camp was later hanged for crimes against humanity. The Nazis seemed to take an unholy delight in selecting Priests for these experiments. The field of experiments embraced malaria, dropsy, skin diseases, endurance in extreme temperatures, etc. In the malarial experiments alone, about 70% of the Priests were used as guinea pigs. Fr. Kuczmanski himself was a victim in the dropsy experiments. A point especially to note is that after a period of observation the victim was returned to normal duties without any sick privileges or medical care. If unable to work, he was killed and cre- mated, and a phoney death certificate issued. From these experiments and the cruel hardships of the camp, 900 Polish Priests died, out of a total of 1,700 in the camp.

At Last—The Yanks
It was providential the Yanks arrived on April 28, 1945, two days ahead of schedule. This early arrival took the Dachau Nazis completely by surprise, and rendered ineffective an order of Himmler's to massacre ALL the prisoners. The idea of the massacre was to silence, for ever, living testimony against this barbaric horror-camp.

At Adelaide
After liberation, Fr. Kuczmanski worked in camps for Polish Ps.O.W., and his last three years have been spent mainly at Saugau in the French Zone. Very recently he has come to Adelaide to cater for the spiritual and social welfare of Polish migrants, whose number here at the moment is over 300. To help them, Fr. Kucsmanski has arranged to say Mass in the Pirie Street church EVERY Sunday at 9.15 a.m. Anyone wishing to assist Fr. Kuczmanski in his noble work may contact him at Archbishop's House (Central 1156), or on Sundays at the Pirie Street church.