Pope John Paul II's lifelong Jewish friend has died

Jerzy Kluger, the lifelong Jewish friend of Blessed John Paul II died in Rome on 31 December. He was 90 years old.

Born on April 4, 1921, Jerzy was 11 months younger than Karol. The pair attended the same schools from the age of five and spent much of their childhood together. When Poland was invaded, the Jewish community in Wadowice was put into a ghetto, their synagogue destroyed. Jerzy went into the army while Karol studied for the priesthood in secret. Both lost many members of their families.

Jerzy and his family finally settled in Rome. During the Second Vatican Council, when the future Pope came to Rome as an auxiliary bishop of Krakow, Poland, he and Jerzy were reunited. They maintained their friendship through the years, and Kluger was a frequent guest at the Vatican after the Pope was elected in 1978. Eventually the Wadowice synagogue was rebuilt and they both attended the opening service.

In his 1994 book, "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," the Pope wrote about his friendship with Kluger in the context of explaining why he had made improving Catholic-Jewish relations a priority in his pontificate.

The Pope said the Second Vatican Council's teaching on the shared traditions of Christians and Jews reflects the personal experience of many people, including his own "from the very first years of my life in my hometown. I remember, above all, the Wadowice elementary school, where at least a fourth of the pupils in my class were Jewish."

"I should mention my friendship at school with one of them, Jerzy Kluger - a friendship that has lasted from my school days to the present," he wrote.

The account of their friendship is also told in 'Letters to a Jewish Friend', by Gian Franco Svidercoschi published in 1994.