Austria 1942

The two SCJ priests Joseph Benedict Stoffels (born in 1895) and Nicolas Anthony Wampachw (born in 1909) were sent to minister to Luxemburgers in Paris near where the future parish of St. Joseph the Worker would be established.

"In 1940 after the invasion of Luxemburg by the Germans, many Luxemburgers fled to Paris where these two SCJs, together with a diocesan priest, helped the refugees. After the fall of France, they helped many in their quest to return to Luxemburg. In a journal it is written: 'In this purely charitable work ... the Gestapo (the Nazi Secret Police) suspected espionage.' After several interrogations toward the end of 1940, the two priests were finally arrested on March 7, 1941, and sent to Buchenwald. They were transferred to Dachau on September 21, 1941.

The official story is that they died of bronchitis or angina. The family of Fr. Stoffels was sent his ashes. As happened in many similar cases, the funerals were held under the surveillance of the Gestapo on August 31, 1942, almost secretly, without bells, songs or participation by parishioners.

"Only after forty years of research has it been learned that the two SCJ priests were gassed at Hartheim Castle in Austria together with two other priests from Luxemburg. Hartheim is about 165 miles from Dachau in a tiny region of Austria called Alkoven. Here a chamber was constructed to experiment with different types of gas. The trip from Dachau to Hartheim took about four hours. The windows of the van were blacked out and it was officially designated as an ambulance. In the castle the procedures were the same as in other concentration camps. The prisoners were striped of everything. Under the pretext that they were to be photographed they were led to the 'showers' in which gas issued from the shower heads ." (Bothe, p. 21)

Hartheim Castle is a fine example of a Renaissance castle. Under the Nazis it had various uses. It was an integral part of the Nazi euthanasia program. Sick and disabled people were sent here for cruel experimentation and then gassed. In this context Fr. Stoffels, who had suffered from a number of illnesses especially respiratory infections, was transferred to Hartheim under the pretense that he was an invalid.
Fr. Stoffels was murdered in one of the gas chambers on May 25,1942. Fr. Wampach on August 12,1942.