ULMA FAMILY NIGHTS

Who is the Ulma Family?

“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). During the Second World War, the Ulma family took on this evangelical attitude, and decided to give shelter to eight Jewish people. Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children paid for this choice with their lives, in 1944.

They did not hesitate to help eight people with Jewish heritage: Saul Goldman and his four children; Lea Didner with her 5-year-old daughter Reszla; and Golda Grünfeld. At that time, in Nazi-occupied Poland, all those who helped Jewish people and kept them in hiding risked being executed. The Ulmas knew this because some Polish people in the area had already been killed for harboring Jews.

The Ulma family’s sacrifice shows that even in the depths of evil, one can choose the way of the Good Samaritan who comes to the aid of wounded man. Józef and Wiktoria chose to love “to the end”. They were guided by their Christian faith, which was essential in their lives and which they wanted to pass on to their children. The Ulmas showed that the measure of love is love without measure.

They incarnated holiness and can be an example for all of us. Theirs was a holiness lived in simplicity and in community, where the whole family passed on the faith at home.

Stanisław Gądecki
Metropolitan Archbishop of Poznaz