The Martyr and the Red Kimono by Naoko Abe 

'I am personally very grateful to Noako Abe for this outstanding piece of work... Through her assiduous research she has retrieved the whole of Maximilian Kolbe’s life story'
 

The Martyr and the Red Kimono - A Fearless Priest’s Sacrifice and A New Generation of Hope in Japan
By Naoko Abe
Chatto & Windus
ISBN: 978-1784744533
Reviewed by Ian Stackhouse

 
The story of the Catholic priest Maximilian Kolbe is well-known. His offering up of his life to save Franciszek Gajowniczekin from a reprisal punishment at Auschwitz is venerated even amongst us evangelicals, who regard his sacrifice as a window onto the atonement itself. 

What is not so well known, and what Naoko Abe brings out so powerfully in the opening sections of the book, is, first, how utterly flawed he was in those early years when he served as a Franciscan missionary in Japan, but also how his six years there, before returning back to his native land of Poland, forged a deep bond between the Catholic communities of both countries, which then played out in surprising ways in the lives of two specific individuals: Tomei Ozaki and Masatoshi Asari.
 
It is the story of these two Japanese men, one a survivor of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki (Ozaki), the other a celebrated botanist who bequeathed cherry trees as peace offerings to victims of Japan’s militarism (Asari), that determines the structure of the book. Their stories are developed separately and at opposite ends of the country.

But what unites them is the inspiration they both gained from Kolbe’s selfless sacrifice at Auschwitz, reflecting as far as Abe is concerned Kolbe’s undoubted transformation from the austere monk he was during his time in the monastery in Nagasaki, into something of a saint – an official one, as he became of course.

Indeed, it is their shared veneration of Kolbe that explains the eventual focus of the book. As Abe hints towards the end, what began as research into two post-war Japanese protagonists became for her a fascination with Kolbe himself, once their devotion to him became evident. In other words, the book changed course.

One might even say it wrote itself, which, I hope, is the highest compliment one could give any researcher. Instead of imposing on her subject matter, Abe lets the subject speak to her. Not only does she write with great humility as she discovers her story, but she also writes with great honesty as she tackles the moral complexities of this period of human history.

The issues are not simple, but how ironic, as Abe points out, that the atomic bomb on Nagasaki landed on the one place in Japan where there was a residual, if not vibrant, Catholic community.
 
I am personally very grateful Noako Abe for this outstanding piece of work. In uncovering Kolbe’s influence on two remarkable Japanese men, she has recovered him for me. Through her assiduous research she has retrieved the whole of Kolbe’s life story, rescued him from mere hagiography, and placed him in a most original and entirely fascinating setting. I hope this book gets a very wide readership.

 

The Revd Dr Ian Stackhouse is the senior pastor of Millmead, Guildford Baptist Church