The members of a Polish family of nine murdered by the Nazis for sheltering Jews have been set on the path to sainthood as the commissions of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints agreed to consider their cause.
The news came on March 24, the 77th anniversary of the family’s martyrdom, and the day, should their beatification occur, on which the saints’ feast will be celebrated.
Józef and Wiktoria Ulma were a devout couple living in the village of Markowa, and they made their living through farming and beekeeping.
The Ulmas had six children: Stanislawa, 8, Barbara, 7, Wladyslaw, 6, Franciszek, 4, Antoni, 3 and Maria, 2.
In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Poland, the Jews of the village were ordered to be handed over for deportation to concentration camps. Only those who found shelter in the homes of their neighbours survived the purge.
For the next two years the Ulma’s sheltered eight Jewish people in their attic, but in 1944 they were betrayed by a Polish collaborator who wanted land belonging to one of the Jewish families hidden by the Ulmas.
The German gendarmes dragged the Jewish families outside and shot them, men, women and children, in the back of the head in front of local villagers who were forced to watch.
Determined to show the consequences of sheltering Jews, the head of the German gendarmes shot Józef and the heavily pregnant Wiktoria in front of their weeping children. Then, after a moment’s consultation with his men, he ordered the children to be killed alongside their parents.
A year later, at risk to their lives, relatives of the Ulmas exhumed their bodies to move them to a cemetery, and discovered that Wiktoria had gone into labour during the massacre, with her newborn child found partially born in her grave.
Despite the horror perpetrated in front of their eyes, their neighbours remained defiant. Twenty-one other Jewish villagers survived the war in the village of Markowa, saved by friends who knew that the fate of the Ulma family could be their own.
Known as the “Good Samaritans of Markowa” the family came to national and international attention after they were declared of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem (The World Holocaust Remembrance Centre) and in 2003 the Polish Catholic Church took up their cause.
In a mass offered up to the martyred family, Fr Witold Burda, postulator, praised the Ulmas: “The Ulmas put God’s law in the first place every day.”
Referring to photographs of the family he said: “The smile of the children in the photos touches me. These children felt safe, loved by mom and dad.” Speaking before the Mass, Burda said: “In the case of the Ulma family, it is about proving that they were martyred for their faith in Christ, and the persecutors – German gendarmes – deprived them of their lives because of hatred for the faith of the Ulma family or for the virtue resulting from faith, in this case, it is about love of neighbour.”
The cause of the Ulmas is interesting in two ways. It involves a family martyred not directly for their faith, but the fruits of their faith; their love of their Jewish neighbours, and their willingness to give their lives for the sake of that love. Secondly it involves seven children, including a partially born and unbaptised infant.
Speaking about the infant discovered half-born in his mother’s grave, Burda said: “The thrilling thing is that you can see here every human being’s deep desire to enjoy life, to come into the world. The Congregation included this unborn, nameless and unbaptised child in the process.”