In a Mass scheduled for Sunday, September 10, in Markowa, Poland, the nine-person Ulma family will be beatified—the first known time that an entire family will be beatified together, as well as the first beatification of an unborn child. 

Beatification, after which the honored individuals are called “blessed,” is the penultimate step in the journey toward sainthood. Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, who were simple farmers, and their seven children were executed by the Nazis on March 24, 1944, for having given refuge to two Jewish families during World War II.

The Ulma family had welcomed these eight Jews and hidden them within their home in southeastern Poland for a year and a half before they were discovered. Upon their discovery by Nazi police, all eight Jews were immediately executed, after which Józef, Wiktoria, and her unborn child were killed as their children watched.  Finally, the Ulma children—who ranged in age from Stanisława, age 8, to Maria, age 2—met the same fate. These new blesseds are also numbered among the martyrs of the Church; Pope Francis recognized that the Ulma family was not just killed, but martyred in odium fidei (“in hatred of the faith”). 

Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, will preside at the September 10 rite. The beatification of the Ulma family highlights a story already given prominence by the Jewish community. Since September 1995, Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma have been honored as “Righteous Among the Nations” at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. This honor, bestowed by the State of Israel, recognizes non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

The beatification of the entire Ulma family, including an unborn child, is a powerful witness to the sanctity of the family and of all human life, including life in the womb. Father Witold Burda, the postulator for the sainthood cause of the Ulma family, reports that the Parable of the Good Samaritan was underlined in the Ulma family’s Bible. Father Burda emphasizes the way that the twofold commandment of love of God and of neighbor was the foundation for their family life.

The Ulma family provides a beautiful example of friendship between Jews and Christians. The Ulmas knew that their actions were punishable by death, yet they chose to give shelter to those Jewish families, simply because those Jews were their neighbors. While there was large indifference to the plight of Jews in Poland, some estimate that more than 50,000 Jewish lives were saved during the Holocaust because of the heroic actions of Poles like the Ulmas.

As the Ulma family is beatified this weekend, may their example—and their heavenly intercession—bring a new flourishing of friendship between the Jews and Christians, a renewed vigor to family life, and a greater reverence for life in the womb. Blessed Józef, Wiktoria, Stanisława, Barbara, Władysław, Franciszek, Antoni, Maria, and Baby, pray for us.

Father Ryan Muldoon is the Archdiocese of New York’s director of the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue.