The Catholic Church is to beatify a Polish family of nine including a new-born baby who died at the hands of the Nazis during World War Two, the Vatican's saint-making department said on Tuesday (September 5). The Ulmas’ beatification process was initiated in the Diocese of Przemyśl in 2003.
The service to beatify Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children will be held on Sunday in the Polish town of Markowa where they died in March 1944. The family was killed by German military police for sheltering a family of Jews.
The Ulmas hid them for a year and a half and were shot with them when Nazi guards discovered them.
Beatification is the last step before sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church. Vatican media have noted that it is the first time that an entire family has been honoured together in this manner.
The Ulmas’ beatification process was initiated in the Diocese of Przemyśl in 2003.
Without the unborn child
However, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints clarified that the beatification would not include an unborn child, as has been claimed by several media reports in the past few days.
Wiktoria Ulma was heavily pregnant and gave birth as she was killed, giving her youngest son a "blood baptism", the dicastery said.
On its website, the Vatican department says the baby boy's body was found when the family was exhumed to give them "a more dignified" burial. The other six Ulma children executed by the Nazis were aged between 18 months and seven, it added.
Pope Francis, who has just returned from a trip to Mongolia, is not scheduled to attend the ceremony.
Righteous Among the Nations
On September 13, 1995, the Yad Vashem institute recognised Józef Ulma and his wife, Wiktoria Ulma, as Righteous Among the Nations. In 2010, Polish President Lech Kaczyński honored them with the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
The Righteous Among the Nations, honored by Yad Vashem, are non-Jews who took great risks to save Jews during the Holocaust. Rescue took many forms and the Righteous came from different nations, religions and walks of life. What they had in common was that they protected their Jewish neighbors at a time when hostility and indifference prevailed.
"The murder of the Ulma family – an entire family that was killed together with the Jews they were hiding – has become a symbol of Polish sacrifice and martyrdom during the German occupation" - Yad Vashem wrote on its website.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: Józef Ulma (zbiory cyfrowe MPRŻ)