A new holiday has been approved in Poland remembering the Jews that were taken to the death camps in Nazi Germany during World War II. According to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki,”helping Jews at that time was one of the most glorious pages of Polish history.”
In Europe, the dishonor of the Nazi Party of World War II still hangs heavy in the air. In Germany, especially, the flag of the Third Reich is not allowed to be displayed anywhere. Even Hollywood has to get special permission when shooting films on site to fly the Nazi flag. They are required to post signs near the site warning the citizens of the use of the Nazi flag, but complaints still come in. Unless one is in a history venue talk about those years is hushed and frowned upon. Participants who are now in their 90s are still being prosecuted.
In March of 2018 Poland, which was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1939, passed a Holocaust bill that requires fines or a maximum three-year jail term for anyone who refers to Nazi death camps as Polish or accuses Poland of collusion in exterminating Jews. To the surprise of Polish lawmakers, Israel has taken umbrage with the bill and prefers that anyone who denies Nazi collaboration would be subject to arrest and a jail sentence. The Polish bill was passed with a vote of fifty-seven to twenty-three, but Israeli lawmakers are still reacting unfavorably.
The first celebration of the Poles who stood up to the rules of the Third Reich was held in the village of Markowa, the home of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma. The Ulmas and their six children, a Catholic family, allowed a Jewish family to hide in their home. Ulma was an educated and prominent man in Markowa, a bee and silkworm keeper and fruit grower who was also a photography enthusiast. Although it was illegal to hide Jews, the Ulma family reached out to the family of six as well as two daughters of another family. The Jewish guests did all they could to help out on the farm, and around the house, for approximately two years they stayed there.
On the 23rd day of March in 1944, a knock at the door of the Ulma’s home started the beginning of the end. Someone had turned the Ulmas into the German authorities. Józef, Wiktoria, who was in labor with the couple’s seventh child, and their children along with the Jews they were hiding were marched out into the street. In order to make an example of Nazi power, the neighbors were rounded up and forced to watch as the Jews were shot in the head. Józef was next and Wicktoria, who by then was in the process of giving birth, was also killed and the children, cowering in terror at the sight of their parents’ dead bodies were shot within minutes. As German policeman Josef Kokottmurdered the children he remarked,“Look at how Polish swine that hide Jews die”. The Germans then told the neighbors and the village mayor to bury the bodies. Several days later some of the townspeople defied the Germans by going out at night to exhume the family’s bodies and give them a proper Catholic burial in caskets. The man who gently laid Wiktoria in her casket reported that the Polish mother’s baby had made it through the birth canal almost to its tiny waist. After the end of the war, the family was reburied in the Parish cemetery.
Józef and Wiktoria were posthumously awarded the Righteous Among the Nations Medal in 1995, and the Catholic church is currently considering the family for beatification as martyrs. They are facing the problem of the unborn child as it was not yet named or baptized but the Vatican will ultimately make that decision.
A memorial museum was opened in Markowaon March 17, 2016, to honor the Ulnas as well as the other Poles who assisted the many Jews trying to escape extermination in occupied Poland.