The upcoming beatification of the Ulma family is an opportunity to recommend a book authored by the IPN Deputy President Mateusz Szpytma Ph.D., “The Righteous and the Merciful. The Rescue of Jews by the Poles and the Tragic Consequences for Ulma Family from Markowa”.

On 24 March 1944, the Germans murdered the entire Polish Ulma family, along with the Jews they had been sheltering – the Didners, the Grunfelds and the Goldmans.

Like the Good Samaritan in Christ’s parable, Józef and Wiktoria Ulma decided to help people of other nationalities and faiths. The biblical injunction to love one’s neighbour meant more to them than the death penalty that threatened Poles for helping Jews. And it was with their lives – their own and those of their children – that they paid for their commendable stand.

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. In 1995, the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem posthumously honoured 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.

They were not alone. During WW2, around a thousand Poles died saving Jews. We commemorate their heroism every year on 24 March – on the National Day of Remembrance of Poles who saved Jews under the German occupation, which for several years has been celebrated on the anniversary of the Markowa massacre. We also try – as far as possible – to commemorate each individual Pole who saved Jews with dignity.

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. “The Righteous and the Merciful. The Rescue of Jews by the Poles and the Tragic Consequences for Ulma Family from Markowa” can be ordered from the IPN online bookstore at:  https://rb.gy/1nwfo