Włodzimierz was good from childhood. Not because he had everything. He was good because he chose to be. God was for him the source of life and happiness. Like Don Bosco, he wore strings dyed with ink in his shoes instead of laces, because he chose poverty. Like Saint Francis, he chose the poor and the least. Like Saint Maximilian, he gave his life for his neighbour. And what would he have said about it…? When the Gestapo arrived, he said: “It is a shame that we had to wait so long for this.”

Childhood and Youth

Fr. Włodzimierz Szembek was born on 22 April 1883 in the village of Poręba Żegoty near Kraków, as the son of Count Zygmunt and Klementyna (née Dzieduszycka). His grandfather was Włodzimierz Dzieduszycki, Marshal of the Galician Sejm and a member of the House of Lords of the Austrian Council of State.

He was raised and educated in a Catholic spirit by his pious mother. In 1907, he obtained a degree in agricultural engineering from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He completed agricultural training in Greater Poland and forestry training in Lesser Poland. At the age of 24, he became the plenipotentiary and administrator of his mother’s estate, covering 3,000 hectares in Węgierka, Pruchnik, and Kramarzówka near Jarosław. He chose, however, a life among the poor and simple people, engaging in lay apostolate. He travelled third class, spent time with the servants on his estate, and did not create distance between himself and others. He generously gave to everyone, choosing for himself a life of poverty.

Perhaps his spiritual portrait was most faithfully described by the parish priest of Pruchnik:
“Włodzimierz Szembek lived in this parish for 20 years. Throughout that time, he was generous to others and strict with himself. No one left him without support; he lived very modestly. He supported religious congregations, orphanages, and educational institutions. He never gave scandal to anyone—he edified all with patience and kindness, and above all with his religious life. He recited the breviary and, in recent times, frequently received the sacraments. He was surrounded with respect and was even regarded as a saint.” It became clear that a vocation was slowly maturing within him.

Salesian Path

On 4 February 1928, he was an aspirant in Oświęcim, in order to observe the work and vocation of the Salesians. Assured that this was his life’s path, at the end of 1928 he began the novitiate in Czerwińsk on the Vistula, which he completed with religious profession on 10 August 1929.
After making his vows, he completed his assistantship in Aleksandrów Kujawski, then studied theology in the Salesian seminary in Oświęcim and Kraków, where on 3 June 1934 he received priestly ordination from his relative, Prince Archbishop Adam Stefan Sapieha.

He then worked in Kraków as provincial secretary, later in Kopiec near Częstochowa, where, thanks to his agricultural education, he taught agronomy, and again worked in Kraków at the Higher Seminary of the Salesian Society, where he was responsible for financial matters. The outbreak of the Second World War found him in Skawa.

Arrest

On 9 July 1942, Gestapo officers entered the Salesian house in Skawa and intended to take the superior of the community, the 72-year-old Fr. Walenty Kozak, as a hostage in place of an escaped aspirant.

Fr. Włodzimierz stood in his defence and said that they should take him instead of Fr. Kozak, since the latter was the superior and should remain.

A scene reminiscent of the well-known story of Fr. Maximilian M. Kolbe. However, this time it ended differently—both Salesians were taken. Fortunately, Fr. Walenty was released after two weeks. The heroic act of Fr. Szembek did not go unnoticed.

Martyrdom and Death

Fr. Włodzimierz Szembek was taken to prison in Nowy Targ, and then to Zakopane, where he spent over a month.

He was tied to a post in shackles; his persecutors beat him, mocked him, ridiculed him, and broke his ribs. He was held in a concrete cell—damp and cold—without a mattress or blanket, constantly interrogated and subjected to torture.

A fellow prisoner from that time testified that Fr. Włodzimierz returned from interrogations calm, without sadness or fear, without anger toward his enemies and without curses; moreover, he urged others to pray for their persecutors, as Christ had done. In this one matter, the fellow prisoners could not agree with Fr. Włodzimierz Szembek.

From Zakopane—his shoulder joints dislocated, his ribs fractured, and with gangrene in his leg—he was transported to Tarnów, and later to Auschwitz.

In that camp, he was assigned to heavy labour pulling a roller used to compact the camp grounds.
Exhausted, destroyed, beaten, and tortured, he died on 18 September 1942.
He bore the camp number 60019.

Beatification Process

Fr. Włodzimierz Szembek 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.