Entitled Death for Humanity: The Ulma Family, the open-air exhibition has been put together by the state-run Institute for National Remembrance (IPN), Poland's PAP news agency PAP reported.
The display, launched on Monday, features dozens of photos and documents, some of which have never been published before, according to officials.
The exhibition charts the fortunes of the family of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, from the village of Markowa, near Łańcut in southeastern Poland, who in the autumn of 1942 gave shelter to members of two Jewish families.
The IPN said: “Józef and Wiktoria Ulma did not passively submit to the course of history. They became its active participants by helping other people in need. They stood on the side of goodness and shared that goodness with others.”
In the spring of 1944, German police discovered that the Ulma family had been hiding Jewish people on their farm.
On March 24, 1944, the Germans shot the eight Jews dead and murdered the entire Ulma family, Józef, Wiktoria, who was seven months pregnant, and their six children.
The Roman Catholic Church has announced that the Polish Ulma family will be beatified for their heroism at a ceremony in Markowa on September 10.
Grażyna Ignaczak-Bandych, head of the Polish President's Office, said on Monday that the new exhibition showed how “not only the Ulma family, but Polish people in general” helped others during World War II, for which they often “paid the highest price.”
She added that the display also had “an optimistic aspect, telling the story of those who had survived.”
Ignaczak-Bandych encouraged the public to "get to know the history of the Ulmas so that on the day of their beatification, September 10, we are all prepared to better understand the uniqueness of this family.”
Meanwhile, IPN deputy head Mateusz Szpytma said at the opening of the exhibition: “We remember the heroism of people who paid the highest price, for they wanted to preserve their humanity against the totalitarian violence of the invaders … During the occupation, German authorities threatened death for acts that were ordinary in free Poland: providing shelter, extending hospitality, sharing bread. Basic human reactions were deemed crimes by the German Nazi regime.”
Szpytma paid tribute to the Ulma family, telling the gathering: “Simple acts of humanity in the Ulma family became acts of courage and were met with brutal consequences. The instinct of humanity in the Ulma family was punished with the death of the entire family and all those they harbored: the Jewish families of Markowski, Łańcucki – Goldman, Didner, and Grünfeld.”
The Death for Humanity: The Ulma Family exhibition, available in Polish and English, runs in front of the presidential palace in Warsaw until September 7.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, IPN