Beatification of the Ulmas probably in 3 years

Maria Zawadzka, 16 November 2016
On May 25th, 2011 the Vatican received the documents of 122 beatification processes of “martyrs of the Second World War”. Among the candidates for beatification are Wiktoria and Józef Ulma and their children – they were all honored by the Yad Vashem Institute with the title “Righteous Among the Nations” for rescuing Jews during the war.

It is very likely that the Church will consider as Blessed not only the Ulmas and their six children, but also the seventh, unborn one – at the time she was murdered, Wiktoria was heavily pregnant.

Mateusz Szpytma, historian of the Kraków Institute for National Remembrance and author of three books about the Ulmas says: “This ceremony is very important to me. It shows that the conduct of the Ulmas has been highly valued and sealed by the Church”.

Among other candidates for beatification are mainly priests, such as Rev. Antoni Henryk Szuman, parish priest of a church in Starogard Gdański, shot in 1939. Ignacy Trenda also has the chance to become one of the Blessed: the Nazis tried to force him to set fire to the cross in the Lelów church and they killed him when he refused.

During the ceremony ending the Polish part of the Ulmas’ beatification process, the Pelplin bishop Jan Bernard Szlaga expressed hope that the Vatican part will end within 3 years. As the Polish Righteous were killed as martyrs, it is not necessary to “prove” any miracle performed with their intercession.

In the fall of 1942 Józef Ulma and his wife Wiktoria née Niemczak, living with their six children, were asked for help by the Jewish Szall family – a father who was cattle merchant before the war, and his four sons.

The Ulmas took them in. Shortly after that they also gave shelter to Gołda Goldman and her sister Lajka with her daughter.

A Blue Policeman, Włodzimierz Leś, denounced the Ulmas. On March 24th, 1944 German soldiers murdered the eight Jews and the Poles who were hiding them: Józef Ulma, his wife, who was in the last month of her pregnancy, and their six children: Staś, Basia, Władzio, Franuś, Antoś and Marysia. The oldest of them was 8 years old.

Józef and Wiktoria Ulma were honored with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1985. In 2003 started the process of beatification of the Ulmas. The Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in the Podkarpacie Region will be created inthe village of Markowa near Łańcut until 2013. More about the Ulma family.