German Mariannhill Father Engelmar Unzeitig was arrested by the Gestapo in 1941 and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. In 1944, he volunteered to care for fellow prisoners suffering from a typhoid outbreak, knowing he would also catch the deadly disease. He died on March 2, 1945, less than two months before the camp’s liberation.

Born in Greifendorf in 1911, Father Engelmar entered the seminary at 18, was ordained in 1939, and spent the year before his arrest as a parish priest. In prison, he tended to the spiritual, emotional and physical needs of those with him. He was called the “Angel of Dachau.”

In a letter from prison to his sister, he wrote: “God’s almighty grace helps us overcome obstacles … love doubles our strength, makes us inventive, makes us feel content and inwardly free. If people would only realize what God has in store for those who love him!”

His beatification process was initiated in 1991, in Würzburg, Germany. In 2004, the diocese of Harrisburg, Pa., opened an investigating of an alleged miracle due to his intercession.