On Friday, August 6rh, 2010 is was publicly announced that the competition for the architectural project of the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in the Podkarpacie Region has started and that tenders are invited. The institution will be created in Markowa near Łańcut, where – apart from the Ulma family – probably about 20 Jews had been hiding in 6 Polish families.

Mateusz Szpytma, historian and one of the initiators of the project, announced: “Architects can send their projects until October 26th. August 23rd is the deadline for sending applications”. The main prize in the competition organized by the Łańcut Castle Museum is an invitation to negotiations for the documentation of the project and 12,000 zloty.

The resolution concerning the creation of a museum devoted to Poles saving Jews in the Podkarpacie region during the Second World War was passed by the regional council of the Podkarpackie province in June 2008. Its justification reads: “In view of the stereotypes that exist in Poland and – especially – abroad, connected with Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War, there is a necessity of presenting facts, mostly unknown, showing the positive manifestations of Polish-Jewish relations”.

In 2004 a monument was unveiled, commemorating the tragic history of the Ulma family. In Autumn 1942 Józef Ulma and his wife Wiktoria née Niemczak, living with their six children, were asked for help by the Jewish Szall family – a father who was cattle merchant before the war, and his four sons. The Ulmas took them in. Shortly after that they also gave shelter to Gołda Goldman and her sister Lajka with her daughter. A Blue Policeman, Włodzimierz Leś, denounced the Ulmas. On March 24th, 1944 German soldiers murdered in Markowa the eight Jews and the Poles who were hiding them: Józef Ulma, his wife, who was in the last month of her pregnancy, and their six children, the oldest of them being 8 years old. Józef and Wiktoria Ulma were honored with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1985. Their process of beatification has started in 2003.

The Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in the Podkarpacie Region will be located near the monument commemorating the dramatic events that took place in Markowa during the Second World War. Young people from Israel and from the United States have been visiting the village for a few years. More about the competition for the museum project on the website of the Łańcut Castle Museum.