As part of the „To Bring Memory Back” program, the students of the School Complex No.2 in Brody met on December 10, 2007 in Cracow with Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz. This is how they describe their actions and the meeting: “One of the goals of our activity is to prepare a meeting and a lecture on the most famous friendship of the 20th century: the one between John Paul II and Jerzy Kluger, Pope’s friend from Wadowice.

We are collecting every traces of the friendship thanks to which the dialogue between Christianity and Judaism changed the course of history. We exchanged letters with Jerzy Kluger, now living in Rome. Thanks to his person, his friendship with the Pope diplomatic relations between Vatican and Israel were established in 1993. Jerzy Kluger, a simple engineer with no interest in politics, was engaged in negotiations on a world scale. Thanks to his actions Pope John Paul II became the first pope in the history of Catholic Church to officially enter a synagogue. Three days before the Pope’s death, Jerzy Kluger visited Vatican to bid farewell to his friend.

Stefan Cardinal Dziwisz, witness of all those meetings, agreed to meet with 3High School students and us, their teachers. The meeting took place on December 10, 2007, at 11:30 AM in Bishop’s Palace in Cracow. We had a list of questions and the Cardinal Priest was kind to answer them all and to wish us good luck.  The Cardinal’s Secretary filled us with information on Nostra Aetate declaration, which should be well known at least to the majority of Polish High School students.

The meeting was great: usually people visit the Cardinal on a day like this just to ask him for something, or to arrange a deal. We just spent 30 enchanting minutes in his company; it was like we made the time go backwards. It was a great, sentimental encounter for every one of us”.    




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