Stanisław Wiórek

[3] While in a street outside, he was caught in a łapanka, a random rounding-up of Polish hostages in reprisal for what the Nazi prop­a­gan­da portrayed as anti-German events of the so-called Bloody Sunday of 3 September 1939, six days earlier.

[4] The randomly detained passers-by were brought to Bydgoszcz's historic Old Market Square (the Stary Rynek), a prominent central place where they were displayed and harassed before twenty-five of them were summarily executed in public by a firing squad at about 12 noon.

[5][6] Wiórek was killed together with his companion, Piotr Szarek who, having shown signs of life after the salvo of shots rang out, was dealt an individual coup de grâce.

Stanisław Wiórek is currently one of the 122 Polish martyrs of the Second World War who are included in the beatification process initiated in 1994, whose first beatifica­tion session was held in Warsaw in 2003 (see Słudzy Boży).

Wiórek's likeness is depicted pictorially in the stained-glass windows of the Church of Our Lady Revealing the Miraculous Medal located in the Olcza district of the city of Zakopane (the Parafia Najświętszej Maryi Panny Niepokalanej Objawiającej Cudowny Medalik).