In 1944, Polish priest Henry Denis endured Nazi malaria experiments at Dachau; after surviving he...

A small roadside monument beside US Highway 34 in rural Nebraska carries the memory of a survival story that began inside the barracks of Dachau concentration camp. The Our Lady of Fatima Shrine, located on the grounds of St. Germanus Catholic Church in Arapahoe, was built to fulfil a solemn promise made by Father Henry J. Denis. Imprisoned by Nazi forces during the Second World War and subjected to deadly medical experiments, the Polish military chaplain vowed that if he survived the concentration camp, he would build a public shrine dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Details documented by Visit Nebraska and published by the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln describe how the priest survived years of imprisonment, medical experiments and near-fatal roll calls before moving to the United States and building the monument.Wartime arrest and the horrors of DachauBorn in Poland and ordained in 1936, Father Denis was serving as a chaplain in the Polish Army when Nazi forces invaded in September 1939. German troops arrested him soon after the invasion, beginning a series of transfers through concentration camps, including Buchenwald, before he was sent to Dachau in 1942. Historians and diocesan r...