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Left: Europa 1996: Edith Stein (Scott 1010) Right: Saint Maximillian Kolbe, 75th Anniversary of Death (Scott 1630, 2016) During the month of August, the feast days of two World War II martryrs were celebrated: Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) on August 9, and Saint Maximillian Kolbe on August 14. Vatican City stamps have been issued in their honor and are illustrated above. On Sunday, September 14, a family of World War II martyrs was beatified during a service celebrated in Markowa, in southeastern Poland. The nine members of the Ulma family were honored for the actions they took during the war. This is the first instance of an entire family being raised to the status of ‘Blessed’ at one time. Józef and Wiktoria Ulma lived on the outskirts of Markowa. They were peasant farmers, and had six children: Stanisława, Barbara, Władysław, Franciszek, Antoni, and Maria. At the time of their execution, Wiktoria was also pregnant with a seventh child. In mid-1942, German forces in Nazi-occupied Poland initiated Operation Reinhardt, a program aimed at exterminating all Jews in the region. During this time, the Ulma family took in two families, totaling eight Jews, and hid them on their farm. From 1942 to early 1944, the Nazis either deported to extermination camps or summarily murdered around 175 Jews in the area around Markowa. On March 24, 1944, a Nazi patrol surrounded the home of the Ulmas, found the Jewish families being sheltered on the farm, and executed them. They then killed Józef, the six children, and Wiktoria, who was in premature labor and gave birth to the seventh Ulma child, an unnamed son, who died at birth. Since there was no chance to baptize the newborn, he experienced what the Church calls a baptism of blood. The Mass of Beatification for the Ulma Family was celebrated in their hometown of Markowa and was attended by an estimated gathering of 30,000 people. In his homily at the Mass, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, said: It would be misleading if the day of the beatification of the Ulma family served only to bring back to memory the terror of the atrocities perpetrated by their executioners, on whom, by the way, the judgment of history already weighs heavily…Instead, we want today to be a day of joy, because the page of the Gospel written on paper has become for us a lived reality, which shines brightly in the Christian witness of the Ulma couple and in the martyrdom of the new Blesseds. Cardinal Semeraro also remembered the eight Jewish friends of the Ulma family who were killed that day. It was fitting that Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, attended the beatification Mass. REFERENCES: Shannon Mullen, National Catholic Register, September 10, 2023, Ulma Family Beatified on a 'Day of Joy' in Poland Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, National Catholic Register, September 8, 2023, The Ulma Family: Models of the Beatitudes Vatican Philatelic Society website, www.vaticanstamps.org, Stamp Database Search |
