More than 30,000 pilgrims and Poland’s most senior officials attended a ceremony today to mark the beatification – a step on the path to possible sainthood – of a Polish family murdered by the Nazi German occupiers for hiding Jews during the Holocaust.
The Ulmas are “a model to imitate in our efforts to do good and serve those who are in need”, said Pope Francis, whose envoy, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, led today’s open-air ceremony in Markowa, the village in which the family lived and died.
“In response to the hatred and violence that characterised those times, they embraced evangelical love…[they] represented a ray of light in the darkness of the Second World War” added the pope. It is the first time that an entire family has been beatified by the Catholic church.
W #Markowa trwa uroczysta msza św. z okazji Beatyfikacji Józefa i Wiktorii Ulmów i ich Siedmiorga Dzieci, w której uczestniczą premierzy Jarosław Kaczyński i @MorawieckiM.
24 marca 1944 r. Niemcy zamordowali rodzinę Ulmów i ukrywanych przez nich Żydów. W 1995 r. Józefa i… pic.twitter.com/EgVYIfakUN
— Kancelaria Premiera (@PremierRP) September 10, 2023
Józef Ulma, a farmer, and his wife Wiktoria sheltered eight Jews in their home in what is now southeast Poland but was then under German-Nazi occupation. The couple did so despite the fact that the punishment for helping Jews was death for an entire family.
After being denounced by a local policeman, on 24 March 1944 Józef and the pregnant Wiktoria, along with their six children ranging in age from two to eight years old, were murdered by German gendarmes after first being forced to witness the execution of the Jews they had been hiding.
“We authorise that the venerable servants of God, Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children, martyrs who, as good Samaritans, fearlessly sacrificed their lives for the sake of love to their brothers and welcomed into their home those who suffered persecution, are given the title of blessed,” declared Semeraro today.
Jozef & Wiktoria Ulma risked their lives to help Jews during the #Holocaust. On 24 March 1944 the German police discovered the Jews in hiding.
The Jewish family was shot, as was the entire Ulma family – parents & 6 children. Wiktoria was 7 months pregnant. pic.twitter.com/awHVQjgMvZ
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) March 24, 2021
Speaking at the ceremony, President Andrzej Duda thanked Francis for honouring the Ulmas. He noted that, as well as the religious importance of the event, it also has “an extremely important state dimension” for Poland.
That is because it “emphasises in a clear, institutional way the historical truth about the times of the German Nazi occupation of Polish lands during World War Two, about the criminal German rule, which was the root cause of this tragedy and this terrible crime that was committed against a Polish family”.
Among other leading Polish officials to attend today’s ceremony were Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the ruling party. A Jewish delegation including Michael Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland, also took part.
Germany has outlined plans for a new centre in Berlin commemorating the victims of German atrocities in Poland during WWII.
"We Germans, and that includes me, still have a lot to learn," says Claudia Roth, the federal commissioner for culture and media https://t.co/HeuP4zGozV
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 30, 2023
In 1995, the Ulmas were recognised by Israel’s Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, a title bestowed on non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust. Among the almost 30,000 people named as Righteous, there are more Poles (over 7,000) than any other national group.
The Ulma family’s beatification process began in Poland in 2003, with the documents then sent to the Vatican in 2011. In 2013, construction began on a museum in Markowa dedicated to Poles who saved Jews during the war. The museum, named after the Ulmas, opened in 2016.
In 2018, Poland’s parliament established a National Day of Remembrance for Poles Saving Jews Under German Occupation that is now held annually on 24 March, the anniversary of the Ulmas’ death.
Poland yesterday marked its National Day of Remembrance for Poles Saving Jews Under German Occupation.
National politicians, local authorities, and Israeli and US diplomats paid tribute to those who risked their lives to rescue Jews from the Holocaust https://t.co/HeIUsFaGii
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) March 25, 2021
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Main image credit: Grzegorz Jakubowski/KPRP
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
