Józef and Wiktoria Ulma with seven children

The life of the Ulma family was simple, marked by working the land, the Christian upbringing of their children, and active participation in the life of the Saint Dorothy parish in Markowa, notably within the Living Rosary Confraternity.

From 1941 onwards, the German occupation of Poland took an increasingly brutal turn with the implementation of the "Final Solution." In Markowa, Jews were hunted down and executed. Despite poverty, financial difficulties, and the certainty that any aid provided to Jews was punishable by immediate death by the Nazis, Józef and Wiktoria decided to act in accordance with their Christian faith.

At the end of 1942 (likely in December), the Ulma family opened the doors of their home and hid eight people of Jewish faith in their attic: Saul Goldman (a cattle merchant from Łańcut aged about 70) and his four sons (Baruch, Mechel, Joachim, and Mojżesz); as well as two daughters and a granddaughter of Chaim Goldman from Markowa: Lea (Layka) Didner with her granddaughter Reszla, and Genia (Gołda) Grünfeld.

For a year and a half, the Ulmas shared their food and their daily lives with these eight refugees, with Józef also helping them tan hides to generate some income.

On the morning of March 24, 1944, following a denunciation (attributable to a Blue Police officer from Łańcut named Włodzimierz Leś), a detachment of German police commanded by Lieutenant Eilert Dieken surrounded the Ulma farm. The gendarmes discovered the Jews hidden in the attic and shot them immediately. They then shot Józef and Wiktoria in front of their house. Faced with the screams of the terrified children, Lieutenant Dieken also ordered their execution. Stanisława, Barbara, Władysław, Franciszek, Antoni, and Maria were cowardly murdered. At the moment of his mother's massacre, the seventh child began to be born; his body would be found partially emerged from the maternal womb during the subsequent exhumation of the family.

The heroic sacrifice of the Ulma family quickly became a national and spiritual symbol in Poland. On September 13, 1995, the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem posthumously awarded Józef and Wiktoria Ulma the title of "Righteous Among the Nations." The beatification process for the family began on September 17, 2003, at the diocesan level, under the aegis of the Diocese of Pelplin, as part of a group of 122 Polish martyrs of the Second World War. In 2017, the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Causes of Saints authorized the Archdiocese of Przemyśl to separate the Ulma family's cause from the collective group in order to conduct a specific investigation into their martyrdom due to its unique nature. On December 17, 2022, Pope Francis approved the decree recognizing the martyrdom of Józef, Wiktoria, and their seven children, thus paving the way for their beatification without the requirement of a miracle (as is the rule for martyrs). An unprecedented theological question arose concerning the seventh child, who had not yet been born at the start of the execution. On September 5, 2023, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints published an official note clarifying that this child, having been brought into the world at the very moment of his mother's martyrdom, is fully associated with the martyrdom of his parents. Having not received the baptism of water, the Church recognizes the "baptism of blood" for him, thus elevating him to the rank of blessed martyr on the same level as his brothers and sisters.

The solemn beatification ceremony of the Ulma family took place on September 10, 2023, in Markowa, the very village of their martyrdom. The celebration was presided over by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, acting as legate for Pope Francis. More than 30,000 faithful, as well as nearly 1,000 priests and 80 bishops and cardinals, attended this historic liturgy. This beatification is completely unprecedented in the history of the Catholic Church: it is the first time that an entire family—parents and children, including a newborn/unborn child—is raised to the altars together by a single decree. The liturgical memorial of the Blessed Ulma family has been set for July 7. Contrary to the traditional custom of using the date of death (March 24, which moreover often falls during Lent), the Church chose to celebrate the family on the anniversary of Józef and Wiktoria's wedding, thus highlighting the holiness of their conjugal love and their family life.

Pope Francis described the Ulma family as an example of the "holiness of the next-door neighbor" (santità della porta accanto). Their spiritual life was not extraordinary in appearance, but deeply rooted in the Gospel. After the massacre, a family Bible was found in their home where the passage of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) was underlined in red, with the handwritten annotation "YES!". This simple mention testifies to their conscious decision to live Christian charity to the point of the supreme gift of their lives.

Their legacy is immense: - They have become universal models of marital and family holiness, showing that the family is a true "domestic Church" and a school of holiness. - The martyrdom of the seventh child offers a powerful testimony to the absolute dignity of human life from conception. - In 2016, the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews during World War II was inaugurated in Markowa. - In March 2024, to mark the 80th anniversary of their death, a Polish delegation planted in the Vatican Gardens an apple tree grafted by Blessed Józef Ulma himself, a symbol of life triumphing over death.