Our world

Polish family’s martyrdom paves way for beatification

PAULINA GUZIK OSV News

KRAKOW, Poland — Urszula Niemczak keeps a regular schedule. At least twice a week she carefully checks whether winter decorations or fresh flowers growing in the summer on a historical gravesite of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their children look good and are well watered. She and her granddaughters take care of the grave in Markowa, in southeastern Poland. Niemczak’s husband is Wiktoria Ulma’s nephew.

“This is my obligation to this family that I entered, to the sacrifice the Ulmas made for all of us,” Niemczak said.

Józef and Wiktoria Ulma secretly gave shelter to eight Jews for almost two years in German-occupied Poland, hiding them from the Nazi regime during the Second World War. The Ulmas had seven children, including the unborn child in Wiktoria’s womb.

The Nazis, informed by a local policeman that Jews were being hidden in the household, came early in the morning March 24, 1944, right before Easter.

First, they killed all eight of the Jewish fugitives. Then they shot Wiktoria and Józef.

“Kids were watching as their parents and the Jewish people they cared for were being shot,”

Mateusz Szpytma, vice president of Polish Institute of National Remembrance, told OSV News.