Two Families and the Communion of Saint

Despite being immersed for over thirty years in the study of modern Polish history, I must confess that I'd never heard of the heroic Ulma family until recently. I'll get to the circumstances of my being introduced to these twentieth-century martyrs in a moment. But first, consider their story. Jozef Ulma was a prominent personality in Markowa, a village in southeastern Poland. Born in 1900, he had a more extensive education than many of his neighbors and was a farmer, a librarian, and an accomplished photographer at a time when that art form took imagination and great skill. His wife Wiktoria, twelve years younger, was the mother of three girls (Stanisława, Barbara, and Maria) and three boys (Władysław, Franciszek, and Antoni). When the Ulmas' trial of conscience came in 1944, the children ranged in age from eight to two, and Wiktoria was pregnant with a seventh child.