The life of St. Maximilian Kolbe is the world’s foil. His triumph is not of worldly conquest or acclaim, but of surrender to God. It is precisely this paradox of victory through sacrifice that the Triumph of the Heart brings to the screen beginning with Kolbe’s final chapter in a starvation cell in Auschwitz.
The cell is dark and dirty. Its prisoners are sorrowful; their dread is palpable. If you know Kolbe’s story, you know he will carry them through the worst days of their life, but you still wonder, how will he possibly do it?
A 20th-century Polish saint, St. Maximilian Kolbe is best known for his heroic deed where he stepped forward in the Auschwitz concentration camp to die in another man’s place. It is this act, and the 14 days that follow in the starvation bunker, that Triumph of the Heart dares to portray.
Kolbe, a priest, missionary, and founder of the Militia of the Immaculata (which still exists today), was deported to Auschwitz in 1941 after he was caught sheltering refugees, including Jews, in his monastery. From the moment he steps forward to take the place of fellow prisoner Franciszek Gajowniczek, a husband and father, to fill the last spot in a starvation cell with nine others, his life is spared none of the Nazi’s horrors.
The prisoners scream, cry, hallucinate, even claw for rats to quiet their hunger. But alongside this visceral evil is an even more visceral love. From the moment the men enter the cell, they are understandably wrought with despair. Kolbe, in his quiet strength, refuses to give into his fellow captor’s insistence that suicide is their best option. In their first few moments in the cell, Kolbe insists: “You can always pray.”
As the days pass, each prisoner gives in to Kolbe’s gentle urging to be civil with one another, and to hope despite their circumstances, and to live their dignity in Christ. Eventually, his fellow prisoners confess their sins to him, and he absolves them, admitting in profound Christian witness his own failings as well. No doubt Kolbe’s sacrifice and courage of spirit, not just in the moment he sacrificed his life, but in the 14 days of consoling and praying with his fellow captors, came from a deep and profound love.
On display in possibly the movie’s darkest moments, Albert, the prisoner who has up until this moment mocked Kolbe’s prayers, tries to commit suicide, using a sharp rock the Nazis throw in their starvation cell. Kolbe stops him with a loving response that disarms his despair, leading him to repentance. Then, in perhaps the story’s most moving moment, Kolbe presses the stone against the floor until it crumbles and uses it to trace the sign of the Cross on each prisoner’s forehead. Like Christ transforming the Cross itself, he turns an instrument of torment into a sign of redemption. In that moment, the truth of faith feels undeniable: It is beautiful, it is good, and it brings light into a darkness almost beyond imagination.
Hallucinations haunt the prisoners in their final days: wives and children, fragments of lost lives. Kolbe, however, sees a vision of Christ crowned with thorns, sustaining him to the end. As he cradles the dying, he whispers, “My one companion is darkness;” you can only be reminded of Christ in the Garden, his desolation before the crucifixion. And finally, Mary appears to him in the cell, crushing the serpent beneath her feet. Kolbe’s last words are a cry of liberation: “We are free.”
What is the viewer to make of the title, Triumph of the Heart? Of course, the heart is a symbol of love, but the sacrificial love that Kolbe exudes from start to finish is something more. It’s profoundly radical. His fierce embrace of Christ bears witness to those who have lost all hope. The true victory of the story is that even in the starvation cell of Auschwitz, without the tabernacle, the altar, or any symbol of light, the dwelling place of Christ within the heart could not be silenced.
Kolbe transforms what would have been the depths of hell into a sanctuary of prayer, hope, and mercy. His love is indestructible. He sees the face of God in everyone, particularly his fellow prisoners who initially taunt him, mock his faith, and are driven to their worst by suffering.
So through Kolbe, we find that Christ, the deepest friend of the soul, is not absent in suffering but present within it. The timing of Triumph of the Heart, released in the U.S. on Sept. 12, is interesting — it immediately follows two of our nation’s most difficult moments: the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the anniversary of 9/11. In a time when so many are understandably beset by fear and sadness, this film presents a profoundly beautiful and Christian response to some of the worst suffering imaginable: an invitation to love, to surrender to Christ, who is love itself, and to sacrifice for others.
This is the message we need today, and it is one that has already comforted the generations past. Canonized by Pope John Paul II as a martyr of charity, Kolbe’s sacrifice remains one of the most staggering displays of Christlike love in modern history. Just before the credits, the movie quotes an Auschwitz survivor testimony: “To say that Fr. Kolbe died for one of us is too small. His death was the salvation of thousands.”
Like any truly beautiful story, Triumph of the Heart breaks you out of this world, leaving an indelible impression with its message of sacrificial love. For this film, it’s because the message cuts to the core of our being, containing the unmistakable truth about a sacrificial love. The heart that gives itself fully to God cannot be defeated.