6 October 2024 was the first of Polish Christian Culture Days in Hungary, organized by St. Adalbert Polish Catholics Society in Hungary and its President Katarzyna Takácsné Kalińska.
It began with a Holy Mass said by Archbishop Józef Michalik in the Polish Church in Budapest, during which sacred relics of the Ulma Family were brought in. Wiktoria and Józef Ulma were a Polish couple who sheltered Jews from German-perpetrated Holocaust in occupied Poland and got murdered for it, along with their children. The Catholic Church recognized them as blessed in September 2023.
After the Mass, Archbishop Michalik consecrated the Polish House adjacent to the Church, where two of our exhibits, "The Good Samaritans from Markowa" and "Death for Humanity. The Ulma Family," are being displayed. They were both created under the supervision or in consultation with the IPN Deputy President Mateusz Szpytma Ph.D., representing the Institute in Budapest. Short speeches by St. Adalbert Polish Catholics Society President Katarzyna Takácsné Kalińska, Hungarian Secretary of State for Churches Minorities and Civil Affairs Miklós Soltész, Polish Ambassador to Hungary Sebastian Kęciek, and the IPN Deputy President Mateusz Szpytma Ph.D. followed.
Mr. Szpytma elaborated on the Ulma family history, told by both exhibits, adding details that the exhibits didn’t say, and showing a number of photographs and photocopies of archival documents that shed more light on why the Ulmas have been names blessed, and why, hopefully, one day they’ll be named saints.
At the end of the visit to Hungary the Institute’s Deputy President Mateusz Szyptma Ph.D. and the Director of the IPN Branch in Rzeszów, Dariusz Iwaneczko visited the Hungarian Presidential Office, where a meeting was held with the head of the international cooperation department, his deputy (Orsolya Kovács, former Hungarian Ambassador to Poland) and the representatives of the Polish community in Hungary.
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Last year, the IPN launched a website comprising a wealth of data and multimedia, as well as exhibits and publications on the Ulma Family, WW2 heroes murdered by the Germans for rescuing Jews at: https://rodzinaulmow.ipn.gov.pl/ule/.
The exhibits opened today in Budapest are also available for download here