The Virgin Mary visits Poland in 1943

Join John Carpenter, Don Hartley, and the Deeper Truth research team as we go to Siekierki, Poland in 1943.  On May 3, 1943, Wladyslawa Papis, age 12, was returning home from praying at the cross when she saw Our Lady appearing above a cherry tree. The girl remembered that she had forgotten her sick uncle in her prayers, so she continued to pray, and Mary watched her and waited.

Our Lady appeared in Gietrzwałd from June 27 to Sept. 16, 1877. Two Polish peasant girls testified to seeing her: 13-year-old Justyna Szafryńska, coming home from her pre-Communion examination and, three days later, 12-year-old Barbara Samulowska, while praying the Rosary.

Samulowska experienced her vision at the foot of a maple tree in front of the church. She described Our Lady as seated on a throne among angels, with Jesus on her knee. When Samulowska asked who she was, she replied: “I am the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, the Immaculate Conception.”

Asked what she demanded of them Our Lady replied that they pray the Rosary daily. Among other questions were two: “Whether the Church in the Kingdom of Poland would be freed and orphaned parishes in southern Warmia would have priests again?” Our Lady replied that, if people prayed fervently, the Church would not be persecuted and those parishes would regain priests.

Those last two questions refer to the pastoral conditions that existed in 1877. In 1877, there was no such thing as “Poland” except in its peoples’ hearts. In 1877, It was part of Prussia and lay near the border of the “Kingdom of Poland,” which was simply the title applied to an administrative unit of the Russian Empire, devoid of any sovereignty. Prussia and Russia, together with Austria, had collectively gobbled up swaths of Poland’s territory between 82 and 103 years earlier; a resurrected Poland would not appear on Europe’s maps for another 41 years.