An Entire Martyred Family’s Beatification for Saving Jews During the Holocaust Includes a Newborn

The Catholic Church today in Poland beatified nine members of the Ulma Family who were summarily executed by the Nazis and local Polish police collaborators for harboring eight Jews from the Holocaust. A Vatican Cardinal performed the ceremony while Pope Francis read a statement from the Holy See that was broadcast on screens in the Polish town where the Ulma’s martyrdom for “hatred of the faith” took place after the-deeply Christian family were betrayed by a local policeman. The eight Jews they had sheltered were also killed, among the three million Jews and six million Poles killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust. It was unprecedented that an entire family (parents and seven young children) was beatified, which literally means to be called “blessed,” as a sign that their souls were saved and that the family is a model of Christian sacrifice for the faithful. Another unusual aspect of the beatification was that the young mother in the Ulma Family was pregnant with the youngest child at the time of her murder, which the Vatican interpreted as the child being born and then “baptized by blood.” It is nonetheless a powerful statement of the humanity of unborn children. Poland’s President and Prime Minister were in attendance of today’s beatification.