Blessed John Paul II: conversation with a childhood friend

(Vatican Radio) Veronica Scarisbrick brings you an archive interview with a childhood friend of Karol Wojtyla's, the late Jerzy Kluger.

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In this interview Kluger tells of how he and the future pope, then nicknamed Lolek, grew up together in their Polish hometown of Wadowice. He describes a young Wojtyla who was popular among his peer group, successful in terms of scholastic achievement and also a talented actor and public speaker.

When asked about Wojtyla's family Kluger says he often went to their home, was familiar in a special way with his father, but also with his elder brother a medical doctor who died prematurely from scarlet fever.

Kluger was the son of the President of the Jewish community in Wadowice of the time who lost most of his immediate family in the nearby concentration and extermination camps of Auschwitz Birkenau. But while he says that John Paul II was familar with this tragedy, it was a subject never broached between them because it was deemed too sensitive and painful a topic.