Blessed Family 

In the early morning of March 24, 1944, Nazi police arrived at the farm of Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma in the small town of Markowa, Poland. An informant had notified the police that the Ulmas were hiding Jews in their home, a crime punishable by death. A search of their home revealed eight members of three Jewish families: the Goldmans, the Grunfelds, and the Didners. The police dragged the refugees outside the house and shot them to death. They then murdered the entire Ulma family – husband, wife, and their seven small children. The bodies were hastily buried, and the house set on fire.  

Half a century later, in 1995, Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma were recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem, the State of Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is a title that honors non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jewish people targeted by the Nazis for extermination. Last Sunday, at a ceremony in their hometown, the Church declared the nine members of the Ulma family to be martyrs and recognized them as Blessed – the last step before Canonization. The Church’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints explained that the evidentiary record shows that the Ulma family’s killers were motivated not only by anti-Semitism, but also by hatred for Christians.  

At the time of their murders, Jozef and Wiktoria’s oldest child was only 8, and Wiktoria was 9 months pregnant with their seventh child. By taking in Jewish families, the couple knew they were putting their whole family at risk, yet they would not turn them away. It was a heroic decision, made possible by a way of life that consisted of everyday acts of sacrificial love as spouses and parents.  In the days leading up to the beatification ceremony, the Bishops of Poland issued a statement noting that the couple’s decision, “was not hasty, but resulted from reading the Word of God, which shaped their hearts and minds, and thus their attitude towards their neighbors.” Examination of the family Bible, which survived the fire, revealed many underlined passages in the Gospel, especially the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  “The Ulma family, trying to live like Christ and implementing the commandment of love every day, were ready to give their lives for their neighbors.” 

What I find particularly moving about their story is that Jozef and Wiktoria, under very difficult circumstances, made Christian discipleship the organizing principle of their lives as husband and wife. It was something that, by their daily example, they also sought to instill in their children. In a real way, Jozef and Wiktoria’s decision in favor of Christian charity helped their children become saints. This might be difficult for us to accept, however, for it requires a supernatural outlook that sees with eyes of faith the eternal end for which we are made. Our Lord teaches us that physical death is not the worst thing that can befall us, for “whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:25). As the Polish Bishops note in their letter: “The Ulma family’s] heroic attitude of love towards others should encourage us to live not so much for our own comfort or the desire to possess, but to live as a gift of ourselves to others.” May this new blessed family of saints intercede for us and inspire us to imitate their lives of ordinary charity that prepared them to love in an extraordinary way, by which they received their eternal reward. 

posted 9/16/23