Seliger Jakob Gapp SM
Personalia
Born:
Died:
Profession:
Persecution:
Banned from the city 04.11.1938,
Escape 21.01.1939,
Imprisoned 09.11.1942 - 13.08.1943,
Murdered 13.08.1943
Curriculum Vitae
Jakob Gabb was born in Wattens in Tyrol as the 7th child of factory worker Martin Gapp and his wife Antonia. After attending elementary school in Wattens, he went to the Franciscan grammar school in Hall in Tyrol. After graduating from high school in 1915, he volunteered for military service and was sent to the southern front in Italy, where he was wounded in April 1916. He was taken prisoner of war in Italy in 1918 and returned from there in August 1919.
In 1920, Jakob Gapp joined the Society of Mary (Marianists), made his first profession in 1921 and was sent to the Marieninstitut in Graz as an educator in the same year. There he prepared for the international Marianist seminary in Fribourg, Switzerland, which he was able to attend from 1925. He also began his studies in Fribourg, which he completed in 1930 and was ordained a priest. In 1931, Jakob Gapp became prefect and religion teacher at the Marianum in Freistadt in Upper Austria. In 1934, he moved back to Graz to become a religious education teacher at the Marieninstitut.
"So it goes without saying that I rejected National Socialism in the spirit of the Holy See and the German bishops and recognized it as my duty to have an enlightening effect on Catholics in this sense. After the incorporation of Austria into the Reich, I could have been satisfied with a purely internal rejection of National Socialism, as many priests did, but I told myself that it was my duty as a priest of the Catholic Church to teach the truth and fight against error."
Jakob Gapp is banned from school and has to leave the parish again on November 4, 1938. He went to live with relatives in Wattens and also preached at mass there. On December 11, 1938, the priests in Wattens and his superiors advised him to leave the country immediately, as the content of his sermons had been passed on to the Gestapo and he had already been threatened several times with the Dachau concentration camp.
Although he was no longer issued a passport in Tyrol, he received one in Wiener Neustadt and was thus able to travel to France via Italy on January 21, 1939, and from there to Bordeaux, the place of origin of the Marianists. On May 24, 1939, he traveled on to the Colegio Católico de Santa Maria in San Sebastian in Spain. There he taught German, Latin, French and religion.
The Gestapo was also hot on his heels in Spain and set agents on his trail. Two agents claimed to be Jews who had fled Berlin and wanted to convert to Catholicism. Jakob Gapp teaches them to convert and so they gain his trust. They invite him on a trip to the Spanish-French border lasting several days. There he was kidnapped by the Gestapo on November 9, 1942 and taken to Berlin.
"Gapp himself repeatedly stated in his interrogation that his Catholic faith had led him to his treasonous actions and justified his actions exclusively on religious grounds. Among the denominationally bound population, Gapp would be considered a martyr of his faith and his burial could be taken by fellow Catholics as an occasion for a silent demonstration for a traitor to the people allegedly executed for the sake of his faith."
On Friday, August 13, 1943 at 7:08 pm, Jakob Gapp is murdered with a guillotine. The body is handed over to the Anatomical-Biological Institute of the University of Berlin for teaching and research purposes. The golden ring that the Marianist received when he made his perpetual profession was sent to his brother by post.
Jakob Gapp was beatified together with the priest Otto Neururer, who was also murdered, by Pope John Paul II on November 24, 1996.
If I am to tell you something from his last weeks or days, I can assure you that he bore his fate with the best attitude and faced death with sincere submission to God's holy will, indeed I would say with a certain joyfulness.
[...]
So death for him was not a painful separation from the earth, but a joyful approach to God.
[...]
I believe we do not need to pray for him, but we can ask God through him to give us strength and grace for a blessed hour of death.
Jakob Gapp was beatified together with the priest Otto Neururer, who was also murdered, by Pope John Paul II on November 24, 1996.
Two institutions are dedicated to research on Jakob Gapp, the Jakob Gapp Working Group in Wattens in Tyrol and the Archives of the Marianists, Austria-Germany Region.
Places
Place of activity:
Memorial:
Honoring:
Citations
- Mikrut, Jan (1999): Blutzeugen des Glaubens. Martyrologium des 20. Jahrhunderts (Wien)
Kolozs, Martin (2022): Für Christus zu leiden ist eine Ehre - Lebensbild des seligen Paters Jakob Gapp (Wien)
Archiv der Marianisten
