Who is my brother?

 

Who is my neighbour?

This week saw the 78^th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by the Soviet Red Army. Even to men hardened by the brutality of the eastern front, the idea of a huge camp set up to exterminate human beings must have been staggering. As the last eye witnesses to the horrors which occurred there become fewer every year, those events will leave living memory and pass into history. It was a cruel time to be alive and for the Jews of Poland. Of 3.3 million Jews living in Poland in 1939, only 380,000 would be alive when the war ended.

The darkness which covered Europe in those in those years seemed complete. Mankind had, in the industrial age, sunk to new levels of barbarity. World War Two was the bloodiest conflict in human history and it still casts a shadow on humanity. Yet among this darkness & brutality, there people prepared to choose a different path, even if they risked all to do so.

Józef and Wiktoria Ulma lived with their family of six young children in Markowa, south-east Poland. Before the war this devout Catholic family got on well with their Jewish neighbours and were well respected in the area as good people. When the Nazi occupiers began their persecution of Poland’s Jews, the Ulma family made a decision which was to have far reaching consequences for them all. They decided to shelter some of their Jewish neighbours from the deadly storm of persecution building around them. They knew the risks and the likely penalty if discovered, but nonetheless sheltered two Jewish families on their farm.

On 24^th March 1944 they were denounced and Germans soldiers along with the local ‘Blue Police’ arrived at their farm. It was said that one of the Blue Police (Polish police under German control) wanted to take over the land of one of the Jewish families in hiding and thought denouncing them to the Germans was a convenient way to be rid of them.

The Germans surrounded the Ulma’s house and caught all eight Jews belonging to the Szali and Goldman families. They shot them all in the back of the head, according to eyewitness Edward Nawojski, who had been forced watch the executions. Then the Germans shot the pregnant Wiktoria and her husband so that the villagers would see the price paid 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 serving with the German security police, shot three or four of the Polish children while the remaining children were murdered by others. Within minutes 17 people were killed at the Ulma’s farm. It is likely that during the mass execution Wiktoria went into labour because the witness to her exhumation testified that he saw a head of a new born baby between her legs.

The horrifying story of the martyrdom of the Ulma family and the Jewish neighbours they had sheltered makes for very uncomfortable reading but it does demonstrate that some good people will be true to their values, even at times of great danger. That March day in 1944, saw the very worst and the very best of humanity.

The Ulma family home is now a small museum dedicated to them and other Poles who helped their Jewish neighbours. Among the exhibits there, is the family bible. Józef Ulma had marked the passage in the new-Testament which told the story of the Good Samaritan. In that story a lawyer asks Jesus how to achieve eternal life. Jesus responds asks him what the law demands of him. The man states that he must love God and love his neighbour. When Jesus  tells him that this is correct, the man asks, ‘but who is my neighbour?’ It’s then Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, knowing that most Jews hated the Samaritans. It was a story meant to unsettle and challenge the audience. Loving those we care for can be much more achievable than loving those we are meant to dislike. Jesus, however you consider him, was nothing if not challenging. The disliked ‘outsider’ in Józef Ulma’s experience was the Jewish neighbours who lived around him. As he saw it, he was living up to his faith and common humanity when he helped them.

Of course, many of you reading this will have no particular religious belief but would doubtless recognise the decency and courage of the Ulma family. They paid the ultimate price for sheltering those in need and we should remember them.

Shakespeare once wrote, ‘The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interned with their bones.’ There was a great evil perpetrated on that spring day long ago and it should never be forgotten, but neither should the courage and goodness of the Ulma family. Ordinary, decent people, caught up in dreadful times. 

Long after the names of the killers are forgotten, we should remember the Ulma family.

Jozef Ulma ( age 43)

Wiktoria Ulma (age 32)

Stanislwa Ulma (age 8)

Barbara Ulma (age  7)

Wadyslawa Ulma (age 6)

Franciszek Ulma (age 4)

Antoni Ulma (age 3)

Maria Ulma (age 2)