Polish church seeks canonization of family killed for shielding Jews

Published: 2004-01-08

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- Poland's Catholic church is seeking the canonization of a Catholic family whose members were executed by the Nazis during World War II for sheltering Jews. Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma, who ran a fruit orchard in the southeastern village of Markowa, were killed March 24, 1944, for sheltering eight Jews who had escaped internment by German occupying forces. Also killed were their children -- four boys and two girls, ages 18 months to 7 years, and an unborn child. "For this simple impulse of Christian love, the parents and their seven offspring paid with their lives," Father Stanislaw Jamrozek, told Poland's Catholic information agency, KAI. Father Jamrozek, the postulator of the sainthood cause, said the request for canonization was initiated by Markowa residents, "who still cherish the memory of their murdered neighbors." The Przemysl Archdiocese is promoting the cause, he said.

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