300 000 Zlotys St. Maksymilian Kolbe

Maksymilian Kolbe was a Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger at Auschwitz in August 1941 — a Polish Army sergeant named Franciszek Gajowniczek, who had cried out about his wife and children when selected for the starvation bunker. Kolbe survived the bunker for two weeks before the SS administered a lethal phenol injection. He was canonized by John Paul II in 1982, a ceremony notable for Gajowniczek's presence in St. Peter's Square, still alive at 82.

The 300,000 złoty denomination reflects Poland's early 1990s redenomination transition period, just before the 1995 introduction of the new złoty at a 10,000:1 ratio.