Józef and Wiktoria Ulma

Józef and Wiktoria Ulma
Józef and Wiktoria Ulma before the War.
Servants of God
Born	1900 (Józef) 1912 (Wiktoria) Markowa, Russian Poland, Russian Empire
Died	24 March 1944 Markowa, Occupied Poland
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church

Servants of God Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, a Polish husband and wife, living in Markowa near Rzeszów in south-eastern Poland during the Nazi German occupation in World War II, were the Righteous who attempted to rescue Polish Jewish families by hiding them in their own home during the Holocaust. They and their children were summarily executed on 24 March 1944 for doing so.

At the onset of World War II, Józef Ulma (born in 1900) was a prominent citizen in the village of Markowa: a librarian, a photographer, active in social life and the local Catholic Youth Association. He was an educated fruit grower and a bee-keeper. His wife Wiktoria (born Wiktoria Niemczak in 1912), was a homemaker. The Ulmas had six children: Stanisława, age 8, Barbara, age 7, Władysław, age 6, Franciszek, age 4, Antoni, age 3 and Maria, age 2. Another child was due to be born just days after the family's summary execution on 24 March 1944.

In the summer and autumn of 1942, the Nazi police deported several Jewish families of Markowa to their deaths as part of the German Final solution to the Jewish question. Only those who were hidden in Polish peasants' homes survived. Eight Jews found shelter with the Ulmas: six members of the Szall (Szali) family from Łańcut including father, mother and four sons, as well as the two daughters of Chaim Goldman, Golda and Layka. Józef Ulma put all eight Jews in the attic. They learned to help him with supplementary jobs while in hiding, to ease the incurred expenses.

In the early morning hours of 24 March 1944 a patrol of German police from Łańcut under Lieutenant Eilert Dieken came to the Ulmas' house which was on the outskirts of the village. They were informed ahead of time about the Jews in hiding by Włodzimierz Leś – a member of the Polish Blue Police – who was Ukrainian himself and who knew the Szall family from Łańcut and who took over their property there. The Germans surrounded the house and caught all eight Jews belonging to the Szall and Goldman families. They shot them in the back of the head according to eyewitness Edward Nawojski and others, who were ordered to look at the executions. Then the German gendarmes killed the pregnant Wiktoria and her husband, so that the villagers would see what punishment awaited them for hiding Jews. The six children began to scream at the sight of their parents' bodies. After consulting with his superior, 23-year-old Jan Kokott, a Czech Volksdeutscher from Sudetenland serving with the German police, shot three or four of the Polish children while other Polish children were murdered by the remaining gendarmes. Within several minutes 17 people were killed.