Walter J. Ciszek, SJ Retreat Recordings

Collection

Identifier: GTM-0092

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Scope and Contents

Contains audio cassette recordings of a brothers' retreat led by Walter J. Ciszek, SJ, as well as a paper index of the schedule and topics covered.

Dates

Creation: 1976-08

Creator

Ciszek, Walter J., 1904-1984 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

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The Walter J. Ciszek, SJ Retreat Recordings are on deposit at Georgetown University and are the property of the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus. As stewards of the Archives, the Georgetown University Library’s Booth Family Center for Special Collections is responsible for managing access to the material based on policies set forth by the USA East Province. Researchers may view these materials in the Reading Room of the Booth Family Center for Special Collections. General policies for using Special Collections can be found here.

Access to the Archives is governed by the USA East Province and is subject to all Library and Special Collections policies and procedures in addition to the specific guidelines below. These guidelines are a summary of access policies; the Archives may include materials that fall outside the scope of these general guidelines. For information on access to specific materials, please contact the Special Collections staff.

Guidelines:

1. All Archives materials dated or bearing solely on events occurring before January 1, 1940, shall be open for review unless otherwise restricted, subject to Library policies and procedures.

2. All unpublished Archives materials dated or bearing solely on events occurring on or after January 1, 1940, shall be open for review upon request subject to a decision by the Provincial or someone designated by the Provincial.

3. Researchers may quote from the materials.

4. Researchers may take their own photographs of the material for scholarly and research purposes. Allowing photographs is not an authorization to publish or to deposit the material in another library or archive.

5. Written permission from the USA East Province is required for the publication of substantive portions of any material or publication-quality reproductions of any material.

6. Material not yet processed is not available to researchers; permission will not be granted to access any unprocessed material.

7. Audiovisual, microfilm and other material in the Archives, the original of which is held in another archive, may be consulted and transcribed only. Written permission from the archive holding the original material is required for any duplication, reproduction, or publication of that material.

8. Use the Permission Request Form to request permission (i) to access any restricted processed material or (ii) to publish reproductions or quote substantive portions of the material. Send the completed form by email to the Booth Family Center for Special Collections (speccoll@georgetown.edu).

Conditions Governing Use

Researchers are solely responsible for determining the copyright status of the materials being used, establishing who the copyright owner is, locating the copyright owner, and obtaining permission for intended use.

Biographical / Historical

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Walter J. Ciszek (1904-1984) was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, to Martin (1871-1938) and Maryja Mika Ciszek (1876-1931), immigrants from Kolbuszowa, Poland. He attended St. Casimir’s Parish School and later began his priestly formation at SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Orchard Lake, Michigan. He then entered the Society of Jesus at St. Andrew-on-Hudson in Poughkeepsie (1928-1930) and, after a brief transfer to the newly established novitiate in Wernersville (1931), he completed his philosophical studies at Woodstock College (1932-1934). Ciszek pursued theology at the Collegio San Roberto Bellarmino in Rome (1935-1938) where he was ordained a priest in the Byzantine Rite (1937).

In 1939 Ciszek was assigned to the Albyrtyn (Albertyn) mission in the Province of Greater Poland and Mazovia, located near Słonim in present-day Belarus. Following the invasion of the region in September 1939, he crossed into the Soviet Union in an effort to minister to deportees in a Ural Mountain logging camp called Chusovoy. He was arrested in June 1941, imprisoned at Lubyanka in Moscow, confessed to crimes of espionage under torture in July 1942, and sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor. Ciszek remained at Lubyanka until 1946 before being transferred to Krasnoyarsk and later to Norilsk, the center of the Norillag labor camp complex. Completing his sentence in April 1955, he was released but restricted to the area of Norilsk. At that time, he was permitted to correspond with family in the US where he had been legally declared dead since 1947.

While in Norilsk Ciszek organized a Catholic parish but was ordered by the KGB to relocate to Krasnoyarsk in 1958 and then to Abakan in 1963. On October 12, 1963, he was released as part of a prisoner exchange, along with American student Marvin Makinen, in return for two Soviet agents. Upon his return to the US, Ciszek was assigned to Fordham University where he served at the John XXIII Center for Eastern Christian Studies until his death in 1984. He authored two memoirs detailing his experiences: With God in Russia (1964) and He Leadeth Me (1973). A third book, With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit, incorporating primary sources, was published posthumously in 2016.