Blessed Otto Neururer was the first priest killed in the Nazi concentration camps. He was tortured and finally hanged upside down on May 30, 1940, in Buchenwald, Germany.

Otto Neururer was born in Austria on March 25, 1882. He was the last of twelve children born to a peasant family. His early education and priesthood did not make him particularly notable, and he was rather shy. He then specialized in the study of the Social Doctrine of the Church. But no one could imagine him as a future martyr. In 1938, the Nazis annexed Austria and began a bloody persecution of the Church. Otto was then a parish priest in a town near Innsbruck, and he began to show his faith, without any human respect, his fear of what others would say.

He advised a young woman in his parish not to marry, as she was in love with a divorced German man, who led a scandalous life. The suitor asked the local Nazi Party leader to take action against him in retaliation. Otto was arrested and charged with defamation. In reality, he was defending the sanctity of Christian marriage, and his sincere opinion regarding a marriage that could not be a sacrament. He was sentenced to the Dachau concentration camp and later to Buchenwald. There, a fellow prisoner asked him to be baptized. Father Neururer was aware that he was risking his life. Nevertheless, he celebrated the sacrament and baptized him. For this reason, he was taken to a punishment bunker. Two days later, he was tortured and executed. A heroic example of courage, for the love of God and others, despite the shyness of his childhood. The vast majority of Christians, God willing, are not subjected to these extreme instances of heroism. But we do have the opportunity, every day, to show those around us the Christian life, without fear or complexes.