On December 17, 2022, Pope Francis recognized the martyrdom of a Polish family killed by the German Nazi occupiers in 1944 for sheltering Jews in an effort to save them from the Holocaust. The decision puts the family on the path to possible sainthood. (See Blog Jan.2020). They will be beatified in 2023.
The Catholic Church officially recognizes their death as “in hatred of the faith.”
On March 24, 1944, the German police entered their home, killed the eight Jews who had taken refuge there, and then shot the couple. The German soldiers then turned their attention to the children, whom they also shot: eight-year-old Stanislas, six-year-old Barbara, five-year-old Władysław, four-year-old Franciszek, three-year-old Antoni, and one-year-old Maria. The couple was expecting a seventh child, also recognized as a martyr by the Church today.
