Artefacts belonging to the Ulma family, who had been murdered by the Germans for hiding Jews, found its way to the IPN.
Archbishop Adam Szal and Rev. Witold Burda — postulator of the Ulmas beatification process — handed over the artefacts to the IPN President Karol Nawrocki, Ph.D. and Deputy President Mateusz Szpytma, Ph.D.
The donated items included a button from Victoria Ulma's clothing, fragments of the coffin in which the body of Wiktoria Ulma and one of her children were buried, soil from the first coffin, in which two children of Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma were buried, and nails from the second coffin, in which three of Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma's children were buried.
The Ulma family serves as a symbol of those Poles who died at the hands of the Germans for helping Jews during the German occupation of Poland. On 13 September 1995, the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem posthumously honored Józef and Wiktoria Ulma with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations. In 2010, the late President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, granted them the Commander's Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland. In 2016, a museum named after the Ulma family, dedicated to all Poles who saved Jews during the Holocaust, was opened in Markowa.
On 17 December 2022, Pope Francis approved the decree on the martyrdom of the Ulma family and authorized the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to publish it. The beatification of the Ulma family will take place on 10 September 2023 in Markowa, Poland.
More:
COLLECTED CONTENT: Poles Saving Jews
POLES RESCUING JEWS UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION - THE ULMA FAMILY