Barbara Ulma

Barbara Ulma was born on 6 October 1937 in the village of Markowa in south-eastern Poland, in what is now the Subcarpathian Voivodeship. She was the second child of Józef Ulma, a farmer, amateur photographer, and beekeeper, and Wiktoria Ulma, née Niemczak. The Ulmas were a devout Roman Catholic family of modest means, known locally for piety, hard work, and readiness to help their neighbors. Barbara grew up with her elder sister Stanisława and, in the following years, with younger siblings Władysław, Franciszek, Antoni, and Maria. Daily life on the small farm combined agricultural labor, parish practice, and the ordinary routines of a rural Polish household in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Markowa fell under occupation. Nazi authorities imposed the death penalty on Poles who sheltered Jews. Despite that threat, from late 1942 the Ulma family hid eight Jewish people in their farmhouse: members of the Szall family from nearby Łańcut and relatives from the Goldman family of Markowa, including Golda Grünfeld and Lea Didner and her child. The refugees were concealed in the attic and on the premises while the Ulmas continued to work the farm and raise their children. Barbara, then a small child of five and six, lived in this household of concealment throughout the last year and a half of her life.

In the early hours of 24 March 1944, German gendarmes from the post at Łańcut, acting on a denunciation, surrounded the Ulma farm. They first shot the eight Jews who had been in hiding. They then murdered Józef and Wiktoria; Wiktoria was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, and later testimony indicated that her unborn child may have been born during the massacre. The gendarmes next killed the six Ulma children, among them Barbara, who was six years old. The action was intended both to punish the rescuers and to terrorize the surrounding population. The bodies were initially buried in a pit near the house.

After the area was freed, the remains of the Ulma family were exhumed in January 1945 and reburied in the parish cemetery of Markowa, where a family tomb later stood. Józef and Wiktoria were recognized by Yad Vashem in 1995 as Righteous Among the Nations. A cause for beatification of the entire family, including the children and the unborn child, was taken up in the Diocese of Przemyśl. On 17 December 2022 Pope Francis authorized a decree of martyrdom, and on 10 September 2023 the Ulma family was beatified at Markowa, with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro presiding as papal legate. They are commonly described as the first family beatified together in the history of the Catholic Church. Barbara is venerated with them as a child martyr, killed for her family’s act of sheltering the persecuted in accordance with the Gospel command to love one’s neighbor.