ROBERT S. WISTRICH
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beautiful Jewish girl and neighbor of the Woytylas who was two years
older than Karol and had gone in 1936 to study at the Jagellonian Uni–
versity in Krakow. Within a year she was back in Wadowice, stunned by
the rampant anti-Semitism among Polish students and preparing, at her
parents' urging, to emigrate to Palestine. Years later, in Israel, she
recalled how she broke the news of her imminent departure to the sev–
enteen-year-old Karol and his father.
There was only one family who never showed any racial hostility
toward us, and that was Lolek and his dad.... IWhen I was aboutl
to leave Poland for Palestine because...disaster faced the Jews...
1
went to say goodbye to Lolek and his father. Mr. Woytyla was upset
about my departure, and when he asked me why, I told him. Again
and again he said to me, 'Not all Poles are anti-Semitic. You know
r
am not!'
1
spoke to him frankly and said that very few Poles were
like him. He was very upset. But Lolek was even more upset than
his father. He did not say a word, but his face went very red. I said
farewell to him as kindly as I could, but he was so moved that he
could not find a single word in reply.
The Hidden Pope
is full of such telling episodes, which reveal not only
the extent of Polish anti-Semitism but also the fact that there were Pol–
ish Catholic families in which such sentiments appeared as shameful and
foreign to their outlook. Unfortunately, O'Brien never really comes to
grips with the issue of whether the Woytylas were an exception to the
anti-Semitic rule or not. What he does provide, however, is a vivid por–
trait of Karol Woytyla's lasting friendship with Jerzy Kluger, which
seemed to cancel out the potentially poisonous effects of the increasingly
pervasive Polish anti-Semitic nationalism of the 1930s. Kluger, it should
be noted, was a member of Wadowice's most prominent Jewish family
(his father, Dr. Wilhelm Kluger, was a successful lawyer and head of the
local Jewish community) and came from an affluent, liberal middle-class
background. He was also a fine sportsman, a fact of no small impor–
tance in shielding Jewish boys in Poland (as elsewhere) from the more
commonplace gentile stereotypes and prejudices about Jews. The present
Pope, too, was an athletically inclined youth who kept goal for the local
Jewish soccer team even against his fellow Catholics. I find something
symbolically appealing in this image of Woytyla trying to save Jews from
defeat or possibly even helping them to victory in a sporting contest.
I also found O'Brien's evocation of Jerzy's father particularly fasci–
nating. Wilhelm Kluger emerges as a staunch Polish patriot who spoke
