Almost like a Christmas present, news came from the Vatican that the family of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, from the village of Markowa in the Subcarpathian region, had entered into the company of saints and the blessed. Officially speaking, the Pope approved the decree on their martyrdom and their beatification is now just a matter of time. A date remains to be set and for preparations to begin.

Although a lot has been said and written about the Ulmas in recent years, not all readers or viewers will immediately know who they were. One might sarcastically ask why everyone should know about them when it just has to do with “some” Catholics. If they are to be beatified, why should other people care. Leave it to the Catholics to deal with. Well… no.

The family of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, including their seven children – six walking on their own, the seventh in their mother’s womb (a very advanced pregnancy, already in the ninth month) – were murdered by the Germans for helping Jewish families. They all died together on March 24, 1944, although not all at the same moment, which I write with horror. All the Ulmas and all those under their care – eight Jews: them first, the Ulmas after them. They are heroes of the highest order – they are national heroes and they also have their place in the history of the world documented at Israel’s Yad Vashem institute.

However, they’ve only had a museum and a monument in their homeland for several years – the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews During World War II in Markowa was established thanks to the tenacity and will to act of local patriots from the Subcarpathian region, because if they hadn’t put all their efforts into it, things would probably still be dragging on. The institution had been searching for its identity for a long time, now it’s slowly beginning to play a culture-forming role in the region – and hopefully not only in the region, because the Ulma family can be a powerful inspiration for young people from around the world in their upbringing and education.

For example, the recently organized “Open-Air Photography in the Footsteps of Józef Ulma” competition for secondary school students from Subcarpathia. The competition had three paths: photographs of people – as Józef Ulma did, photographing his family, friends and acquaintances during various home and recreational activities; landscape photography – like Józef Ulma, photographing the landscapes of Markowa, and photographs showing the “captured uniqueness of the moment” – like Józef Ulma did, photographing the emotions of people and events. Earlier, workshops for participants were led by masters of press photography, and the contest was popular.

Who cares?

The news about the beatification did not make it to the front pages of newspapers and websites worn out by the war in Ukraine, its consequences and internal troubles and, finally, the constant struggle to show the true face of Poles who saved Jews during the war. “Who cares” say journalists who are aware of which topics are “read” and which are disregarded. And yet, we can’t afford for the beatification of the Ulma family and, more broadly, the heritage of the Polish Righteous, to be wasted and to become dead history.

The matter is multifaceted, it’s big, important and serious – and in no way deserves the superficial euphoria that will probably also appear. It’s great because it concerns matters of the utmost importance – life and death, responsibility for other people and for decisions made, maturity and identity, credibility and faithfulness to principles professed.

Wiktoria and Józef Ulma were truly extraordinary people, she was still young (32 years old), he was already mature (44 years old), they were a great couple with a commitment to rural matters and culture, because that’s what their passions should be called. Józef was not only a well-known fruit grower in the area, and one who taught others how to develop new crops, but he was also a photographer, today we would even say a photojournalist and chronicler of everyday life. Wiktoria, despite her successive pregnancies, was active in an amateur rural theater which, by the way, shows how vibrant the social life was in that area of Subcarpathia. Both were also very involved in the life of their Catholic community. Their lives were built on deep intimacy with God, active participation in the parish community and knowledge of the Holy Bible (which was not so obvious at that time!).

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  The matter is important – because time is passing, it’s not the witnesses of those events who are passing away, but already their children and students – those who had the opportunity to hear directly what it was like (although let’s not kid ourselves, that’s what our parents and teachers told us) and who confronted knowledge that they learned at home with everything that was going on outside. I’ve written many times in my journalistic life that we will never know how we’d live and who we’d be if it weren’t for the ubiquitous public lie in which we had to grow up.

This is also true in this case: it’s not true that those who saved Jews didn’t talk about it after the war, because they allegedly feared anti-Semitic neighbors and the like, which doesn’t mean that there were no anti-Semites. There were, are and will be on every continent. No, our fathers and our mothers were afraid of the communist secret police, they were afraid of repressions for identifying with pre-war Poland and the Polish Underground State, which carried out extensive, structural activities, including in the area of rescuing Jews.

The matter is serious, and it’s one of the most serious ones, nothing to joke or wink and nod about or trivialize. It should engage citizens at every level, both Catholics and those who care about the good of Poland, but who aren’t connected with Catholicism or faith at all. Because Jews weren’t only saved by Catholics, and not only by believers, and not only by townspeople, and not only by intellectuals.

An American researcher with Jewish roots in Poland, Nechama Tec, once tried to study the attitudes of rescuers, which was almost impossible, but she found something in common among them: they were, without exception, independent thinkers, not easily influenced, didn’t succumb to quick emotions, respected others, were decisive and had empathy. The Ulma family, with its discernment-based faith and wide-ranging interests, perfectly symbolizes such attitudes. And that’s why it can be so inspiring.

Am I obliged to?

On the occasion of the recent 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Council to Aid Jews, “Żegota”, as a structure of the Polish Underground State, the premiere of the film Matusia about Mother Matilda Getter took place. During the war, she headed the Mazovian province of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary – but she also stood like a general at the head of a religious “division” of sisters ready to save every Jewish child that they could. After the premiere, a panel discussion took place, in which, among other things, the following question was raised: “am I obliged to save other people’s children when my own may be in danger? Where should I look for an answer to this question?” Participating in the panel, the Franciscan sister, in a way the successor of Mother Matylda Getter and the spiritual heiress of her work, Sister Magdalena Abramow-Newerly (yes, from the famous family of writers, Igor’s granddaughter) with incredible depth and great simplicity, so that nothing offend the questioner – replied. “Such an answer is given to a person by their formed conscience, a person prepares for such an answer all their life, God himself stands behind such an answer.”

“She's a nun, what else would she say,” someone commented with a clear lack of understanding about what it’s all about.

The beatification of the Ulma family no longer allows for such a comment. The Ulmas were ordinary – though in their own way, of course, extraordinary – people, the likes of which we can still meet. An example of a beautiful life, rich in love and passion, openness to others, unforced but dedicated social service. At the same time, their motivation was clear – Christian, in the literal understanding of Christ’s call, shocking in its maturity – to save others, to the point of giving your life for them, because this is what the Gospel teaches. In their home copy of the Bible, a passage was circled in red crayon: “A certain Samaritan, while traveling, also passed by him. When he saw him, he was deeply moved: he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; then he put him on his own beast, took him to an inn, and tended him.” This copy was found in the ashes of their home.

On a completely different panel, organized online during the pandemic by the Ulma Family Museum, a representative of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington asked other panelists about the motives of Wiktoria and Józef Ulma. And none of the panelists – and there were professed Catholics among them – said directly that their motivation was built on Christian identity, on faithfulness to the Gospel, on a life in which words didn’t differ from deeds. To this day, I can’t understand why the panelists were so “speechless”, especially since I had the impression that the representative of the Holocaust Museum asked this question just so that the one true answer could be given.

Now, when the long beatification process has unequivocally assessed and summed up the life of the Ulma family, will such a situation no longer take place? Or rather, it depends on the panelists, because – as I wrote a moment ago – Sister Magdalena Abramow-Newerly had no problems with answering a question heading in the same direction.

But it’s not panels and discussions that are most important in all of this, but education and the awareness built thanks to it, which is supposed to be years-long awareness. And it’s supposed to give strength to take up challenges, which there is no lack of, now also in the face of the war beyond Poland’s eastern border. We can easily imagine a new church dedicated to the blessed Ulma Family from Markowa – and the message that flows from its patrons. Though of course, someone only has to work on it: active parishioners, a wise priest, a committed nun, a local history buff. It won’t work itself out. And this must be organic work, from scratch, begun anew each day – otherwise it will end only with emotions. Even if the beatification ceremonies will be at the highest level, with beautiful scenography, choirs and soloists from the opera and other attractions.

This beautiful news from the Vatican is a very extraordinary gift under our Christmas tree. And a very difficult topic to talk about alongside Christmas gingerbread or poppy seed cake, not to mention the Nativity scene with the Holy Family. This is because the saints require something more from us, including the Holy Family from Markowa.

–Barbara Sułek-Kowalska

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and journalists

–Translated by Nicholas Siekierski