Few people know that Jerzy Kluger attended the same grammar school class as John Paul II, befriending him. In adulthood, he became an engineer and a businessman. His life was marked by the cruelty of the German occupation. He fought against the Germans in the Battle of Monte Cassino.
Born in Krakow on 4 April 1921, Kluger came from a family of educated Jews. Jerzy was a student at the Wadowice secondary school (1930-1938). There he met and made friends with Karol Wojtyla – the future Pope and saint, John Paul II.
“It would be necessary to mention here my comradely friendship with one of them, that is, with Jerzy Kluger. It has lasted from the school bench to the present day”, St John Paul II said in 1994.
Jerzy’s youth was marked by the tragedy of the Second World War. The Germans murdered his mother, sister, and grandmother in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. After Germany invaded Poland and World War II broke out, Kluger intended to enlist with his father in the Polish army. Unfortunately, they were arrested by the Soviet NKVD apparatus and imprisoned in a gulag.
After the signing of the treaty between the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile and the Soviet Union, Kluger joined the Polish army corps, commanded by General Władysław Anders. He fought with this army against the German Nazis, including in Italy at the Battle of Monte Cassino.
After the war, he continued his engineering studies in England and Italy. He also founded a company to install and import transport machinery. In the 1950s, he and his wife Renee (and company) moved from the UK to Rome.
During the pontificate of John Paul II, Kluger assisted the Pope during the Vatican-Israel diplomatic talks. He also assisted him in the preparations for the ever memorable first-ever visit to a synagogue by the head of the Catholic Church (Rome, 1986). The Pope baptised Jerzy’s granddaughter, Chiara.
In 2003, the Polish Council of Christians and Jews awarded him the title “Man of Reconciliation”.
Jerzy Kluger died on 31 December 2011 in a Roman hospital of Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 90.