Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin plants a tree in honour of the Ulma family marking the 80th anniversary of the martyrdom of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, and their seven children, who were murdered by Nazis in 1944 for giving refuge to Jewish people.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, presided over a tree-planting ceremony in the Vatican Gardens on Wednesday to pay homage to the heroic Ulma family.
The ceremony took place just a few steps from the Lourdes Grotto, a place of prayer for Popes and pilgrims. It is the same tree—an apple tree—that Józef Ulma wanted to plant in the garden of his house in Markowa, Poland before Nazi troops stormed the house to slaughter him, his wife Wiktoria, and their seven children.
The Nazis had judged the family, whose members would later be known and venerated over time as the “Good Samaritans of Markowa,” guilty of having given refuge to eight Jews fleeing persecution.
The ceremony in the Vatican Gardens took place eighty years after their sacrifice, with Cardinal Parolin calling it “a shocking story.”