Saint of the Month: Bl. Jósef and Wiktoria Ulma and their children

Bl. Jósef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children were a Polish farm family and martyrs of the Nazi Holocaust.  

JOSEF
Bl. Jósef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children were a Polish farm family and martyrs of the Nazi Holocaust.  Jósef Ulma was born in 1900 to Marcin and Franciszka Ulma, prosperous farmers in the village of Markowa, Poland. He worked on the farm and attended the local school. As a teen, he became actively involved in several groups: The Catholic Youth Association, The Catholic Diocese of Przemyśl, whose members prayed together and raised funds for the care of parish churches, and the Rural Youth Association. He was keenly interested in reading, beekeeping, and gardening. He spent two years serving in the military, and in 1929, attended the National Agricultural School in Pilsen, where he graduated with excellent grades. He set about to grow fruit trees, breed silkworms, and manage honeybee colonies. He sold saplings, made his own wind turbine and was the first person in the village to have electricity. He had an extensive reading library and made a book-binding device. He was active in the Catholic Men’s Youth Association and the Union of Rural Youth of the Republic of Poland. His favorite pastime was photography, and he was well known to take photos of the people of Markowa on both special occasions and everyday rural life.

WIKTORIA

Wiktoria Niemczak was born in 1912 to Jan and Franciscka Niemczak at Markowa. She also attended the local school and studied at the People’s University in Gać. She enjoyed performing in a local theater. Jósef and Wiktoria were married in the summer of 1935. The couple was blessed with six children and Wiktoria was a devoted homemaker. The family prayed together daily and were active at St. Dorothy Church in Markowa. They were members of The Living Rosary, a prayer campaign founded in France by an associate of St. John Vianney. The family Bible was very well used and numerous passages were underlined.

PRESECUTION BEGINS

When World War II began, about thirty Jewish families lived in Markowa. In the summer of 1942, some of the Jewish people of the village were taken away to their sad fate at a work camp or extermination camp. Many of those remaining went into hiding. Jósef helped some of them by making underground cellars on the edge of town. This method of hiding only worked for a short time and some families were able find shelter in the homes of local farmers. In December of 1942, the crackdown intensified in Markowa, with twenty-five Jews arrested, executed, and thrown in a trench. Jósef and Wiktoria took a group of eight Jewish acquaintances into their home sometime in 1942.  They retreated to the attic only to sleep and when there was a search going on. The eight were Saul Goldman and his four sons, their relatives Golda Grünfeld, Lea Didner, and Lea’s daughter. These hidden residents were able to help Jósef and Wiktoria with the many chores accompanying sixteen people living in one house.

BETRAYED

In early 1944, Wlodzimierz Leś was a member of the “Blue Police”, a group of Polish and Ukrainian men who did the bidding of the Germans. He wanted to confiscate the estate of the Goldman family who were sheltering with the Ulmas. In March of that year, he visited the Ulmas to verify that the Goldman family was present. He then betrayed them, certain to bring death to this family and hoping to have clear ownership of the Goldman’s estate. In the predawn hours of March 24, a contingent of German soldiers and Blue Police set out for the Ulma’s property and by dawn had surrounded the farmhouse. The eight members of the Goldman family were captured and shot to death one by one. There were several eyewitnesses who were ordered to watch the executions so that they could be used as an intimidation tactic for the rest of the town. Next to be executed was Jósef. Wiktoria, who was in her eighth month of pregnancy with her seventh child was next. Having witnessed the carnage that had already taken place, she went into labor before she was executed and the witnesses said that the head on her infant son was already outside of her body. The cold-blooded killers also decided to execute the six terrorized screaming children as yet another message to any other residents who might be protecting Jews. The soldiers then took so many of the belongings of the Ulma and Goldman families, several wagons had to be brought to carry the loot. The soldiers concluded by enjoying a drinking spree and then set fire to the farmhouse. Some locals were ordered to bury the bodies. At a later time, the bodies were exhumed and given a proper funeral at St. Dorothy’s. When the bodies were exhumed, it was discovered that the infant boy was completely outside of his mother’s body. In September of 1944, Wlodzimierz Leś, who betrayed the Ulma family, was put to death by the Polish Underground State. Only one of the German soldiers faced justice for his cruelty, Josef Kokott, who died in prison in 1980. The rest died of natural causes.

BEATIFICATION OF AN ENTIRE FAMILY

The entire Ulma family of nine was beatified in Markowa in September of 2023. In addition to Jósef and Wiktoria were Stanislawa, age 8; Barbara, age 7; Wladyslaw, age 6; Franciszek, age 4; Antoni, age 3; Maria, age 2; and the unnamed newborn son. In their family Bible, the Ulmas had written “yes” in the margin next to the parable of The Good Samaritan. Despite the known danger they placed themselves in, they put this teaching in action to provide shelter and food for others in great distress. Their memory has been greatly honored in their homeland, including a memorial marker, a reenactment of their heroic witness, and a sarcophagus in a side altar at St. Dorothy Church in Markowa where their remains are venerated. The Ulma family’s feast day is kept on Jósef and Wiktoria’s wedding anniversary, July 7.