The subject of this article is the figure of Father Emil Szramek. The first part of the article describes Szramek's life at home, at school, at the university, then as a parish priest and in the St Jacek's Society for Education in Silesia. The second part presents the period when Szramek was parish priest of St Mary's Parish in Katowice, canon of the cathedral chapter, president of the Society of Friends of Education in Silesia and, finally, a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps.