Bishop Stanislaw Gadecki, president of the Polish Episcopal Conference, stressed that the beatification of the entire Ulma family, martyred by the Nazis for hiding a group of Jews, highlights the need to respect the life of every human being.
In a text sent to ACI Prensa by the Polish Embassy in Caracas and published by the Polish monthly magazine Wszystko co najważniejsze, the Archbishop of Poznan also highlights that “the beatification of the Ulma family reminds the world of the need to respect the life of all being human and being firm in the defense of values.”
For Bishop Gadecki, this beatification recalls the value of marriage as a union of a man and a woman, open to life; and is “an affirmation of the value of life from the moment of conception and a reminder of the commandment to love one’s neighbor to the willingness to give one’s life for one’s friends.”
“Perhaps in the secularized Western world it may be surprising that some parents were willing to risk not only their own lives but also that of their children, to save people of another nationality and another religion”, continued the Prelate.
This attitude, however, “arises from the roots in Christianity that still characterize Polish culture. Such an attitude was adopted by other Polish saints as well: Saint Maksymilian Kolbe, blessed Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, blessed priest Jerzy Popiełuszko, Saint John Paul II,” he added.
The Ulma family, from the town of Markowa in southern Poland, was murdered by the Nazis on March 24, 1944 for hiding a group of Jews. Since December 1942, it welcomed Saul Goldman with his sons Baruch, Mechel, Joachim and Mojżesz, and Chaim Goldman’s two daughters and granddaughter: Gołda Grünfeld and Lea Didner, accompanied by her daughter Reszla.
The Germans found out about this through a tip-off and killed Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their children: Stanisław, Barbara, Władysław, Franciszek, Antoni, Maria, as well as the Jews they were hiding: 17 people in total.
The Polish Archbishop explains in his article that “Józef and Wiktoria Ulma hid Jews despite the decree issued by the Germans on October 15, 1941, according to which the death penalty was threatened not only for Jews who ‘left the district that had been assigned to them’, but also to anyone who hid them. The reason the Ulma decided to risk their lives was their deep and traditional Catholic faith.”
The Archbishop also highlights that during World War II, between 300,000 and one million Poles helped hide Jews.
“The beatification of the Ulma family has the particularity that, for the first time in the history of the Church, the entire family will be elevated to the altars. Wiktoria Ulma was nine months pregnant. This child, in accordance with the teaching of the Church, received baptism of blood, which gives the fruits of baptism without being a sacrament,” she stressed.
Indeed, on September 5, the Vatican issued a note in which it specified that Wiktoria, pregnant with her seventh child, gave birth in the midst of martyrdom, adding the baby to the Church’s list of martyrs.
In recent times, the Polish Prelate states in his text, “after Russia’s brutal aggression against Ukraine, this same Christian sensitivity of the Poles has been translated into the opening of hearts and homes to refugees from the war in Ukraine. ”.
About 14.5 million Ukrainians, including women and children, arrived in Poland from Ukraine. Although a large part of them have returned, some 3.5 million have found refuge from the war.
The Archbishop of Poznań specified that this attitude and availability can be understood with the motto “Poland semper fidelis ”, which expresses the fidelity of the Polish people. “With this attitude, the Church in Poland wishes to participate in the upcoming Synod on Synodality, seeing it as an opportunity to renew the Church in Europe by recalling and expressing in contemporary language those values without which the Church and Christianity, and consequently Poland and Europe would not be themselves”, he asserts.