Stanisława Ulma

Stanisława Ulma was born in 1932 in the village of Markowa, in the Łańcut district of south-eastern Poland, then part of the Second Polish Republic. She was the eldest child of Józef Ulma, a farmer, village librarian, beekeeper, and amateur photographer, and Wiktoria Ulma, née Niemczak. The household was a devout Roman Catholic family of modest rural means, known locally for hard work, literacy, and regular religious practice. Stanisława grew up with five younger siblings—Barbara, Władysław, Franciszek, Antoni, and Maria—on the family farm. Her father recorded family life in photographs that later became important historical evidence of the children. Individual biographical detail about Stanisława herself is limited because she died in childhood and because wartime conditions destroyed or scattered many local records; what can be said of her life is bound up with the household in Markowa and with the events of the German occupation.

During the Second World War, German occupation authorities in the General Government imposed the death penalty on Poles who sheltered Jews. Despite that threat, the Ulma family hid Jewish neighbours in their farmhouse. Those concealed there included members of the Szall family from nearby Łańcut and others associated with the Goldman, Didner, and Grünfeld families—eight people in the standard historical account. The decision to hide them was later understood by the Catholic Church as an act of Christian charity, an application of the commandment to love one’s neighbour, rather than as a merely political gesture. Stanisława, still of primary-school age, lived in the same house as those in hiding and shared the daily risks of discovery.

In the early morning of 24 March 1944, German gendarmes from Łańcut, acting on a denunciation and led by Eilert Dieken, surrounded the Ulma farm. They first shot the Jewish people found on the premises, then Józef and Wiktoria. Wiktoria was in the last weeks of pregnancy; later examination of the remains indicated that her seventh child may have been born during or immediately after her death. The gendarmes then killed the six children, including Stanisława, who was eleven years old. The victims were buried in a provisional grave near the house. In 1945 the remains were exhumed and reburied in the parish cemetery beside the church of Saint Dorothy in Markowa.

Józef and Wiktoria Ulma were recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1995. A cause of beatification for the entire family, including the children and the unborn child, was later introduced in the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis authorised a decree of martyrdom on 17 December 2022, judging that they had been killed in odium fidei, in hatred of the faith. The beatification of Józef, Wiktoria, Stanisława, her five siblings, and the unborn child took place on 10 September 2023 in Markowa, with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro acting as papal legate. They are venerated collectively as the Blessed Ulma Family, an unusual instance of a whole family, including an unborn child, being raised together to the honours of the altar. Their liturgical memorial is observed on 7 July. Stanisława is remembered not through a separate public career but as the eldest of the murdered children and as a member of that family witness.