Taken care of by Nazis – now the family is beatified

The Polish farming family hid Jews from the atrocities of the Nazis during World War II. In March 1944, they and the eight proteges in the attic were shot dead by German police.

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.