“I have become all things to all people, so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Cor 9:22). The Servant of God, Fr. Franciszek, from the very beginning of his life was taught Christian values in his family home. Each day he knelt in prayer with his parents, thereby deepening his relationship with God. Regular reception of the sacraments was for him a sure path to meeting God in eternity. Confession was the last sacrament he received in his life.

Childhood and Youth

Franciszek was born on 22 August 1885 in the village of Osiny in Silesia, the son of Karol and Maria (née Sojka). They formed a traditional Silesian family, in which they prayed and worked together and cared for their common home.

The talented Franciszek, at the age of 16, in 1901, was admitted to the Salesian school in Oświęcim. Two of his brothers also studied at the same school. There his spiritual life developed. He was a man sensitive to beauty and gifted. On various school occasions, he wrote laudatory speeches (panegyrics), which were appreciated by both students and teachers.

Salesian Path

After completing his schooling, he entered the novitiate in Daszawa and on 27 January 1907 made his first religious vows. He spent one year of practical pedagogical training (the so-called assistantship) in Oświęcim, and another in Turin, where he worked in the editorial office of the Salesian Bulletin.
On 24 March 1910, he made his perpetual vows. He completed his theological studies in Foglizzo Canavese, and after their completion, he received priestly ordination on 29 May 1915 in Ivrea from Bishop Filipello.

As a priest, he returned to Poland and was assigned to the Salesian Institute in Oświęcim, where in the years 1915–1916 he worked as a teacher. Subsequently, in the years 1916–1918, he served as the director of the secondary school, and from 1918 he was a councillor (director of studies) of the Philosophical Studentate at “Łosiówka” in Kraków, becoming its director in 1920.

In the years 1922–1927, he was the director of the secondary school in Aleksandrów Kujawski. After 16 years, in 1927, he returned to Kraków, again serving as councillor, lecturer, and educator in the Salesian seminary. In 1938, he was appointed professor in the house in Kraków-Łosiówka.

He was remembered as a tactful, gentle, and humble superior. He did not place himself above others. He was respected and esteemed by his confreres, and liked and listened to by the young. His opinion was taken seriously. He was a spiritual pillar of the Salesian Congregation in Poland.

His literary talent was manifested, among other things, in the texts he wrote for the Mystery of the Passion, performed by generations of Salesians, for which the music was composed by Fr. Antoni Hlond (Chlondowski), a Salesian. Fr. Franciszek signed his works as Franciscus Silesius.

Martyrdom and Death

The Second World War marked the beginning of the path of his martyrdom. He was arrested by the Gestapo on 23 May 1941 and placed in the Montelupich prison in Kraków. Together with other confreres, on 26 June 1941 he was transported to the concentration camp in Auschwitz.

There, already on the second day of his stay, as a member of the penal company, he fell into the hands of a ruthless kapo. Prisoners were transporting stones to a ditch. Fr. Franciszek was thrown into it together with a loaded wheelbarrow.

Lying at the bottom with broken arms and legs, he was beaten by the kapo with a heavy stick. The perpetrator allowed only that another prisoner be called—a Salesian, Fr. Józef Wybraniec—so that he might hear the confession of the dying Fr. Franciszek. Beaten to death, Fr. Franciszek was dying while hearing blasphemous insults from the merciless kapo. Before his death, he was absolved by his confrere in a place where others thought that God was absent.

Throughout his life, he faithfully received the sacraments. In the final hour of his life, he was also granted the grace of confession. He was killed together with Fr. Kazimierz Wojciechowski, when both were strangled with a beam pressed against their throats. His body was burned in one of the crematoria. His love for his brethren endured until death.

Fr. Harazim died on 27 June 1941, at the age of 56, in the 34th year of his religious profession and after 26 years of priesthood. His camp number was 17375.

Beatification Process

Fr. Franciszek Harazim is one of the 122 Servants of God for whom the second beatification process of the second group of Polish martyrs of the Second World War began on 17 September 2003.
On 24 May 2011, the diocesan phase concluded in Pelplin, and all documentation was forwarded to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome.

The Positio was submitted on 21 July 2022, and its relator was Fr. Szczepan Tadeusz Praśkiewicz, OCD. The postulator of the cause is Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, General Postulator for the Causes of the Salesian Family, who collaborates with Dr. Mariafrancesca Oggianu.

On Tuesday, 28 March 2023, the historical consultors of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints issued a positive opinion regarding the Positio suppletiva super martyrio of Fr. Jan Świerc and eight companions, priests of the Society of St. Francis de Sales, murdered in odium fidei in German extermination camps in the years 1941–1942.

On 24 October 2025, Pope Leo XIV ordered the publication of the Decree on Martyrdom and its inclusion in the records of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

On 1 May 2026, Pope Leo XIV signed an Apostolic Letter allowing the Servants of God to be called Blessed and designated 23 May as the day of their liturgical commemoration. On 6 June 2026, the beatification ceremony took place at the Shrine of St John Paul II in Krakow.