A Light Shining in the Darkness

In the darkest days of the Second World War, the Nazis were implementing the heinous and diabolical “Final Solution” for the Jewish race by eliminating some six million of them in death camps in Europe, but most especially in occupied Poland.
           
In Markova, a small village in southeastern Poland, a couple with a growing family made a courageous decision to become a light shining in the darkness of hatred and violence. Józef and Wiktoria Ulma welcomed into their small farmhouse—really a one-floor cottage—three families, a total of eight people, all Jews, to hide them from the Nazis who threatened to kill them immediately or send them to an extermination camp. For about a year and a half Józef and Wiktoria hid members of the Goldman, Didner and Szall families in the attic of their home. They provided food and shelter for them, because of their commitment to their Catholic Faith and the Gospel. In a Bible found in their home, the heading “The Good Samaritan” of the 10th chapter St. Luke’s Gospel was underlined in red. Alongside of this underlining the word “Yes” was written. While either Jozef or Wiktoria underlined this heading, both of them along with their children, were Good Samaritans for these people in such grave peril.
           
A villager informed the authorities of the Jews concealed in the Ulma home. At about 5 o’clock on the morning of March 24, 1944 some ten military personnel including five German gendarmes and four to six local collaborators raided their home. They killed the Jewish people immediately, some of them while they slept. Józef and Wiktoria were forced out of their home and shot point-blank without allowing them to utter a single word. Dieken, the commander of the raid, then ordered the six Ulma children who were screaming for their parents also to be shot, in order to silence them.
           
Wiktoria was nine months pregnant with their seventh child, ready to deliver any day, at the time of their execution, bringing the number of people murdered to 17. Józef, Wiktoria and their children were buried in a shallow grave and the Jewish people in a separate grave. Five days later several people, including relatives of the Ulmas, came to their burial site and, defying the Nazi orders, exhumed their bodies to rebury them in coffins. It was then they discovered that the seventh child was partially born when Wiktoria was shot, probably due to the trauma of that fateful morning.
           
On September 10 of 2023, with the approbation of Pope Francis, the entire Ulma family was beatified at a Mass celebrated in a field of their native Markova. It is the first time that an entire family and an unborn child was beatified.  They were considered martyrs who were killed because of their deep-seated Christian convictions about coming to the aid of those in danger. They were deeply devout Catholics who lived their Faith to the full, even to the point of laying down their lives for others. We can say that they were martyrs of charity, killed for hatred of their Catholic Faith.
           
The story of the Ulma family is a powerful witness to our world today, in which many live in darkness, denying the right of others to live and enjoy the life God has given them. Every human person, no matter what age they are, no matter what their ethnic or racial background is, no matter what their social status or physical or mental health might be, has the right to live. No person, or group, or government, has the right to deny them this. The violent attacks on life that people suffer today harkens back to the dark days of the 1940’s. Most especially, the death of the partially born unnamed seventh child of Józef and Wiktoria reminds us of the many unborn children who are killed by abortion before they see the light of day.  It is painful reminder to us that the wholesale killing of the innocents continues.
           
During this Respect Life Month beginning October 1, let us with great charity, compassion and courage, work to preserve and protect human life, no matter what the age or circumstance of the individual. Let us with particular zeal work for the protection of the most vulnerable and innocent in our society, our children, and most especially, the unborn.
           
Let us invoke the intercession of the martyrs Blessed Jozef and Wiktoria and their seven children that we, too, will be Good Samaritans and valiant protectors of human life.

Blessed Józef Ulma
Blessed Wiktoria Ulma
Blessed Stanisława Ulma (8 years)
Blessed Barbara Ulma (7 years)
Blessed Władysław Ulma (6 years)
Blessed Franciszek Ulma (4 years)
Blessed Antoni Ulma (3 years)
Blessed Maria Ulma (2 years)
Blessed Child in the Womb
Pray for us!

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh