Victoria Memorial: The descendant of a Polish woman killed by the Nazis for sheltering Jews took a Calcutta audience through one of the most shameful chapters of human history on Tuesday.

Matuesz Szpytma, a grandnephew of Wiktoria Ulma, visited Victoria Memorial for inaugurating an exhibition titled The Good Samaritans from Markowa. On display were photographs of and documents on Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, among others.

The Catholic couple, who lived in the village of Markowa in southeastern Poland, were killed along with their six children after the Germans found out they were sheltering Jews.

"Józef and Wiktoria are more than Samaritans. They are a symbol or sacrifice and compassion, like Mother Teresa," Szpytma said in his address.

The exhibition was organised by the Victoria Memorial Hall in collaboration with the Polish Institute in New Delhi.

Jayanta Sengupta, curator of Victoria Memorial, said Markowa and Calcutta were thousands of miles apart but the exhibition was relevant because it told a poignant story of tolerance, friendship, selflessness and sacrifice.

In 1939, Poland was invaded by Hitler's forces and Stalin's army.

Hitler's men killed six million Polish citizens, including almost the entire Jewish community in the country. "Hitler wanted to eliminate all Jews in Europe and Poland seemed useful because the country had the maximum number of Jews in the entire continent," said Tomasz Gerlach, the director of the Polish Institute.

The village of Markowa had a few thousand residents, including a few hundred Jews.

The Ulmas gave shelter to eight Jews, including a man named Saul Goldman and his four sons, despite poverty and risk. Under German occupation laws, any assistance to Jews by a Polish citizen was punishable by death.

"The forces would not only kill the person who gave shelter to a fleeing Jew but his entire family," said Szpytma, a historian and the deputy president of Institute of National Remembrance, in Warsaw.

In the morning of March 24, 1944, German policemen arrived in front of the house of the Ulmas.

They first shot the Jews, followed by Józef and Wiktoria, who was in the seventh month of pregnancy. Then, the commanding officer decided to kill the children. Within a few minutes, 17 people lost their lives.

But the Ulmas' sacrifice inspired several others in their village to give shelter to the Jews despite the risk to their lives.

In 1995, Wiktoria and Józef were posthumously awarded the "Righteous Among the Nations" title - a honorific that Israel bestows on non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

On March 17, 2016, the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Who Saved Jews was opened in Markowa with a ceremony attended by the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda. Jakub Pawlowski, specialist for education from the museum, addressed the audience.

The exhibition will be open from 10am to 5pm till December 31.