page_title: Józef Padewski
section_title: Postwar years and death
hierarchical_section_title: Józef Padewski / Postwar years and death
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Grób bpa Józefa Padewskiego
context_page_description: Józef Padewski was the bishop of the Polish Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church.
context_section_description: He returned to Poland on 20 February 1946 in order to provide pastoral care to the Polish clergy. He was soon accused of illegally handling foreign currency. However, that was seen as a pretext, and his arrest was viewed as a political plot.
  Around this time, Tomasz Kołakowski, one of the priests of the PNCC in Poland, managed to evade the Communist authorities and escape to the United States. There, he revealed the Katyn massacre to the American public. The Communist authorities in Poland then viewed the PNCC in Poland as being taken over by American imperialism.
  Padewski was betrayed by clergy within the Polish PNCC anxious to gain favour with the Communist authorities. He was arrested on 17 January 1951.
  He was held in a political Mokotów Prison in Warsaw. In this prison, on 10 May 1951, he was tortured to death by officers of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland (MBP). The authorities falsified his autopsy and claimed that he died by natural causes.
  His funeral, in the PNCC cemetery in Warsaw, was conducted during the night of 14 May 1951, by a team of his closest colleagues. Officers of the MBP surrounded the area. Padewski is buried at Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw.
caption: Grave of Padewski at Powązki Military Cemetery
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