Gérard-Martin Cendrier

Who they were

Gérard Cendrier, known in religion as Brother Gérard Martin, was born in Paris on 16 June 1920. As a boy he belonged to the Scout movement, and in 1940 he entered the Franciscans. Sent to Germany for compulsory labour service, he was assigned to the Reichsbahn in Cologne along with eleven other friars, and devoted himself especially to visiting the sick, making weekly rounds of the city's thirty hospitals to bring the Word of God as well as books, food and help to his hospitalised countrymen.

Following a Nazi decree of 12 March 1943, he was arrested on 13 July 1944, interrogated and tortured in Brauweiler prison, and interned at Buchenwald under the number 81770. He was later transferred to the infirmary at Langenstein, where he died on 24 January 1945. On 20 June 2025 Pope Leo XIV recognised his martyrdom in hatred of the faith, together with a group of 50 martyrs in all; the solemn beatification was celebrated on 13 December 2025 in Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The miracles

As a martyr he was raised to the altars without a miracle.

Why that counted as sanctity

French Franciscan friar who died at Langenstein in 1945 after arrest for aiding fellow forced labourers; martyrdom recognised and beatified in 2025.

The cause