Poland: Wadowice

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• published: 16 Sep 2011
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Wadowice's history ... The history of the town of Wadowice can be traced back to the 13th century. First it belonged to the princedom of the Silesian Piasts, next to form a part of the Principality of Oswiecim that would morph later into Principality of Zator. In 1482 the short-lived Principality of Wadowice was created that lasted 11 years. Returned to the Zator statelet, in 1495 Wadowice was bought with it by Poland and incorporated to the powerful kingdom. During the first partition of Poland in 1772 the Austrian Empire annexed the southern part of the Krakow province, including Wadowice. In 1867 the town was made the capital of a county, which brought it new prosperity. In 1918, after the Great War, Wadowice returned to Poland reborn as a republic. At the outset of the Second World War, when the Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Wadowice was annexed to the Third Reich. Since the end of the WWII the town has been Poland again. The Birthplace of Pope John Paul II ... Wadowice has gotten international recognition as the birthplace of Pope John Paul II. Born in 1920 as Karol Wojtyla, the future Pontiff lived in Wadowice till 1938 when he moved to Krakow to study at its ancient Jagiellonian Univesity. Yet to his last days the late Holy Father remembered fondly his Wadowice youth and places associated with it, the schoolmates, his teachers, and other local folks he had used to know. Also, he tried to include the town, when possible, in his visits to Poland. Tourists seek in Wadowice sites connected with Pope John II. Their first obvious choice is the house at 7 Koscielna Street with flat where the future Vicar of Christ was born and raised. The place has been turned to a museum and exhibits comprise the Wojtyla family's former possessions such as an oven, a shelf, a table, tableware, a laundry basket, family pictures as well as personal belongings of Father Karol Wojtyla -- skis, a rucksack, a cap, a prayer book, etc., plus photos from his three visits to Wadowice as the Pope. The building is situated in the town's heart, next to the baroque church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the central square. The church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is perhaps most iconic in the life of the Pontiff. The future John Paul II grew up in its shadow, was baptized a Catholic and later confirmed in it, served as an altar boy and prayed daily here before its miraculous picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The church's Gothic chancel dates from the 15th century while the late-Baroque nave and aisles were built in the 1790s. The left aisle contains a baptismal font where the baby Karol Wojtyla was baptized.