The beatification of the entire Ulma family, including their children, stands as a uniquely historic moment in Church history, yet one laden with sorrow and symbolism as Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki noted. On that day, Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children were beatified in Markowa, located in Podkarpacie.
The Ulmas and their children were killed by German forces on March 24, 1944 for sheltering Jews.
“Something absolutely unique and sad at the same time”
Prime Minister Morawiecki spoke about Sunday’s beatification during a live Facebook broadcast in the evening.
He called it, as he heard from sources, the first beatification in the world’s history, a moment that is both completely unique and deeply tragic, symbolic and profound. “The entire Ulma family, including their children, was beatified,” he said.
He described the Ulma family as Poles who hid Jews during World War II and were brutally slain by German forces in March 1944. The assailants were German gendarmes; not all Nazis or SS men are to be remembered as a monolith. The point, he suggested, is that cruelty was carried out by some during that era, while others resisted or took great risks to help others.
Morawiecki added that a harsh view of history is warranted when considering the events. He noted that, from his reading, a significant portion of German society supported Nazism and the ideological violence propagated by Adolf Hitler.
“They carried out the killings—innocent children, Poles who helped Jews, and the Jewish nation itself,” he stated. He stressed the tragedy of a culture and a language nearly erased by the violence of that time, highlighting the devastating loss endured by Polish Jews and the broader Polish nation.
He urged society to remember the past with clarity and compassion, honoring those who sheltered Jews and risked everything during the war.
Beatification of the Ulma family
The beatification of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children took place on Sunday in Markowa, Podkarpacie. The service was presided over by the Pope’s envoy, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children were murdered by German forces on March 24, 1944 for saving Jews. In the massacre, sixteen people died. The victims included two daughters of the Ulmas’ neighbors, the Goldman family, and three Szall brothers, their elderly father Saul Szall, and another man from the Szall family. Józef and his wife Wiktoria, who was seven months pregnant, were shot in front of the Ulma children. The six children—Stanisława, Barbara, Władysław, Franciszek, Antoni, and Mary—were also killed in the tragedy.
The beatification process for the Ulma family lasted twenty years in total.
In 1995, Wiktoria and Józef Ulma were recognized posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel’s Yad Vashem Institute. In 2010, they were awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński. Since 2018, at the request of the Polish President, Andrzej Duda, the Sejm and the Senate established the National Day of Remembrance for Poles Who Saved Jews under German Occupation.
Among the 51 countries counted, Poles are the largest national group recognized as Righteous, numbering 7,232 individuals. This recognition came despite helping Jews being punishable by death under German-occupied governance.
The beatification was widely observed with about 37,000 participants at the Holy Mass, demonstrating the enduring impact of this event on communities and families across the region.
The broader discourse around the beatification has touched on the Vatican’s role during the Nazi era and the ongoing dialogue about historical memory and accountability in wartime Poland and Europe.