New Publication on the 80th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Blessed Marcel Callo

March 22nd, 2025 Authors and guests of honor at the presentation of the new Marcel Callo publication on March 22, 2025 in St. Georgen an der Gusen.

On Saturday, March 22, 2025, a new scientific publication on the life, martyrdom, beatification and current significance of Blessed Marcel Callo was presented at the House of Remembrance in St. Georgen an der Gusen under the title "Marcel Callo - Christ und Märtyrer“ [Christian and Martyr].

This new publication, which in particular also contains the latest research on the extremely cruel martyrdom of this young French worker´s apostle in the former Gusen II concentration camp and in the huge underground Messerschmitt aircraft plant “Bergkristall” in St. Georgen, was published in a cross-border project by Dr. Andreas Schmoller of the Franz and Franziska Jägerstätter Institute of the Catholic Private University of Linz, Austria.

Prof. Dr. Marc Bergère (Rennes, France), Dr. Samuel Gicquel (Rennes, France), Prof. Rudolf Haunschmied (Gusen, Austria), Thomas Gueydier (Rennes, France), Christoph Fuchs (Linz, Austria) and Bishop emeritus Dr. h.c. Maximilian Aichern OSB (Linz, Austria) contributed high-caliber expert chapters.

This new publication with 56 pages and numerous illustrations can be purchased from bookstores or directly via bernhard.kagerer@inode.at of the publisher Edition R3 for EUR 8,-- plus shipping costs.

The importance of Blessed Marcel Callo and this new scientific publication is also underlined by the fact that the Archbishop of Rennes, H.E. Pierre d'Ornellas, the Bishop of Linz, H.E. Dr. Manfred Scheuer, Bishop emeritus of Linz, H.E. Dr. h.c. Maximilian Aichern, and the Governor of Upper Austria, Thomas Stelzer, expressed their appreciation for Blessed Marcel Callo and the memorial work done during decades in the St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen region at this book presentation.

The martyrdom of Blessed Marcel Callo was not an ordinary martyrdom! He was not hastily murdered by the Nazis for his faith and active Christian practices, but rather tortured to death in a nearly five-month-long extermination process in the extremely cruel, inhumane, and primitive Gusen II concentration camp. Surviving prisoners once referred to this camp of insanity, which at the time was among the worst in all of Europe, as the „Ninth Circle of Hell“, or „The Hell of all Hells“.

Thus, until his bitter end, Blessed Marcel Callo was a Christian in the depth of a man-made hell that actually existed at St. Georgen and Gusen during the war years.

This extreme martyrdom alone clearly distinguishes him from many other martyrs we know form church history.

Before the book launch, Prof. Rudolf Haunschmied of the Gusen Memorial Committee led the Archbishop of Rennes and his companions on a walk from Gusen to St. Georgen to the original sites of the extreme sufferings of the Blessed.

Following the book launch, all participants also visited the former Mauthausen "sanitary camp," where Marcel Callo died on March 19, 1945, after only three full days of detention. He was brought there to die together with 1,000 other unfit prisoners of Camp Gusen II anonymously on March 15, 1945.

On March 23, 2025, the Roman Catholic parish of St. Georgen an der Gusen also dedicated its Sunday service to the memory of Blessed Marcel Callo, who suffered the essential part of his cruel martyrdom on its territory.

Freies Radio Freistadt dedicated the following radio boadcasts to the 80th anniversary of the martyrdom of Blessed Marcel Callo:

Furthermore the following print media articles are available:

Our president Reinhard Kaspar also worked many weeks in the organizing committee of the Diocese of Linz for this extraordinary memorial weekend for Blessed Marcel Callo.  

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