Marcin Tomaka

Marcin Tomaka was a Roman Catholic diocesan priest from the Polish lands of Galicia who died as a prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp during the Second World War. He was born on 7 November 1884 in the village of Haczów, then in the Austrian partition (the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria). The village is known for its historic wooden church. He completed secondary studies at the gymnasium in Jasło and was ordained to the priesthood on 29 June 1909 for the Diocese of Przemyśl.

After ordination he served as a vicar in several parishes of the region, including Jasło, Kombornia, and Krosno. In 1923 he was appointed parish priest of Trześniów in the Brzozów area, remaining there through the interwar years of the Second Polish Republic. His ministry was that of a rural pastor among a largely agricultural population in what is now the Podkarpackie region of Poland.

Following the German occupation of Poland, the Nazi authorities systematically targeted the Polish clergy. Tomaka was arrested by the Gestapo on 10 October 1940. He was deported first to Sachsenhausen and then to Dachau, the camp that held a large number of imprisoned Polish priests under extremely harsh conditions. He died at Dachau on 5 July 1942. Camp prisoners were typically cremated; no distinct burial place is recorded in standard sources.

Tomaka is remembered in local and diocesan Polish Catholic tradition among the many priests who perished in the camps. Some ecclesiastical notices have referred to him as a Servant of God. He was not among the 108 Martyrs of World War II beatified by Pope John Paul II in Warsaw on 13 June 1999, and no papal beatification or canonization of Tomaka is recorded in widely available historical references. Surviving information about his life is relatively limited outside regional martyrologies and commemorations of the clergy of the Przemyśl diocese.