The Nazis' arrival in Poland and the persecution of the Jews separated a young Karol Wojtyla from his Jewish friends.
Gian Franco Svidercoschi was able to contact at least three of them: Jerzy, Kurt and Ewa.
GIAN FRANCO SVIDERCOSCHI
Vatican Correspondent
I had already written about the friendship between Jerzy and the Pope. The Nazis made Jerzy suffer. They killed his mother, his sister and his grandmother in the concentration camps. But the Soviets were the ones who killed the parents of the other two in Katyn.
They all lived in Wadowice until World War II broke out. Jerzy was drafted. He fought in Africa and ended up living in Rome. Some time later, by chance, and after many detours, Kurt, another of the four friends, ended up there too.
GIAN FRANCO SVIDERCOSCHI
Vatican Correspondent
With the Nazis' arrival, Kurt fled east with his family. But the Soviets captured them and put them on a train. He escaped on foot and reached Rome with two friends. He had to fight in Montecassino. Then in Rome, he found Jerzy, and they started their own business.
In Rome, both got back in contact with John Paul II. Kurt died in 2009, and Jerzy, in 2011. In their final years, they shared some of their memories of their friendship with the Pope.
Jerzy shared how, once, while he was waiting for Karol Wojtyla to finish praying inside a church in Wadowice, a woman from the town, knowing Jerzy was Jewish, reprimanded him for being inside the church.
JERZY KLUGER
When I told Karol what had happened, he became very serious and said to me, 'Don't they realize that we are children of the same God?' We were 10 years old when he said that.
The story with Ewa was different. After World War II, she ended up in Australia. There, she was able to see John Paul II during one of his papal trips to the country.
GIAN FRANCO SVIDERCOSCHI
Vatican Correspondent
During one of the events, she managed to get a bit closer so that the Pope could see her, and he did. They knew each other from Wadowice, but they had lost contact. John Paul II then did something that made an impression on those present. He looked at her, as if she were the only person there. And she had the impression that the Pope was saying, 'I know you, but I don't know who you are. I recognize that look.' And she said it was beautiful that the four of them were able to see each other again.
Gian Franco Svidercoschi put these stories together in the book, “Lolek,” which is a nickname Karol Wojtyla's friends had for him. At the end, it recounts how the Pope's three Jewish friends met in Jerusalem to see him at the Wailing Wall.
The author is a veteran correspondent at the Vatican. He had the opportunity to be very close to the Pope and the Pope's secretary, Cardinal Stansilaw Dziwisz. He says this book is another example of John Paul II's affection for the Jewish community. It was not for nothing that he became the first pontiff to enter a synagogue after centuries of tension between Jews and Catholics.
JRB
TR: CT
