Now, almost 80 years after the event, the Polish couple Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children have been beatified. It happened at a well-attended ceremony in the family’s hometown of Markowa in southeastern Poland.
High-ranking politicians and religious leaders attended the ceremony, which was presided over by the papal envoy and Cardinal Marcello Semeraro. Pope Francis also commented on the beatification, the first of a whole family.
— May this Polish family, which represented a ray of light in the darkness of the Second World War, be a role model for us all, said the Pope.
The Ulma family, with father Jozef Ulma, mother Wiktoria and six of their children, in an undated photo.