105 Years Ago, St. John Paul II’s Older Sister was Born; She Died 16 Hours After Her Birth

Fot. BP KEP

“105 years ago, on 7 July 1916, Olga Maria Wojtyla, John Paul II’s older sister, was born in Biala (now Bielsko-Biala). The girl lived only 16 hours, but the memories of her remained vivid,” said the John Paul II Family House Museum in Wadowice on its Facebook profile.

The museum emphasized that the Polish Pope recalled his sister during his visit to Wadowice on 7 June 1979. He said then: “My prayer is for so many people who have died, beginning with my parents, my brother and my sister, whose memory is linked for me with this city.”

Olga Maria Wojtyla was also mentioned in John Paul II’s will: “As the end of my life approaches, I return with my memory to the beginning, to my parents, to my brother, to the sister (I never knew because she died before my birth),” the Pope wrote there.

John Paul II had a brother Edmund and a sister Olga. Edmund Wojtyla was born on 27 August 1906 in Krakow. He also spent many years in Wadowice. From 1924 to 1930, he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He had an internship in Children’s Clinic in Krakow, and, on 1 April 1932, he became a deputy head in Bielsko. During the 1932 plague epidemic, he got infected through the contact with a young patient whose life he wanted to save at the risk of his own. He died on 4 December 1932. Many see him as a candidate for beatification. As to the beatification process for John Paul II’s parents, Emilia and Karol Sr., it began in 2020.

The John Paul II Family House Museum is in the tenement building where the Wojtyla family lived. This is where the future Pope John Paul II was born on 18 May 1920.

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