“Their heroism is a symbol, and the memory of them will last”, wrote the Polish President Andrzej Duda on Twitter, commenting on the Holy Father’s decision.<\/p>\n
J\u00f3zef and Wiktoria Ulma lived in the village of Markowa in the pre-war Lw\u00f3w voivodeship, now the Podkarpacie region.<\/p>\n
In 1942, during the German occupation, disregarding the danger, they gave shelter to eight Jews from Markowa and \u0141a\u0144cut: Saul Goldman and his four sons and two daughters and Chaim Goldman’s granddaughter from Markowa – Lea (Layka) Didner, her daughter and Genia (Go\u0142da) Gr\u00fcnfeld.<\/p>\n
In the spring of 1944, the Ulmas were denounced, probably by an officer from the Blue Police, that they were hiding Jews.<\/p>\n
On 24 March 1944, German gendarmes from the \u0141a\u0144cut police station executed J\u00f3zef Ulma and his wife, who was seven months pregnant, as well as their children: eight-year-old Stanis\u0142awa, six-year-old Barbara, five-year-old W\u0142adys\u0142aw, four-year-old Franciszek, three-year-old Antoni and one-and-a-half-year-old Maria. Together with the Ulmas, the Jews also died.<\/p>\n
In Markowa, with a population of around 4,500, the Ulmas were not the only Poles who hid Jews. Thanks to the help of six families, 21 Jews survived the occupation.<\/p>\n
In 1995, Wiktoria and J\u00f3zef Ulma were posthumously honoured with the title of Righteous Among the Nations. In 2010, President Lech Kaczy\u0144ski decorated them with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Rebirth of Poland.<\/p>\n
On 17 March 2016, the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews During World War II was opened in Markowa, which aims to show the heroic attitudes of Poles who helped Jews, risking their own lives and their families.<\/p>\n
24 March, the day the Ulma family was murdered, was established in 2018 as the National Day of Remembrance of Poles who saved Jews during the German occupation.<\/p>\n
Adrian Andrzejewski<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pope Francis approved on Saturday 17 December 2022 the decree on the martyrdom of the Ulmas family, murdered on 24 March 1944 in Markowa. The couple and their seven children…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":36255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events"],"yoast_head":"\n