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August 22, 2001
Former classmate recalls youthful pope
Retired steelworker shared nickname with Karol Wojtyla
CROWN POINT, Ind. (CNS) — Nearly 70 years ago, two boys called Lolek met while attending high school in Wadowice, Poland.
They parted company after graduation, in part because of education plans, and also because of the German invasion of Poland and the onset of World War II.
Karol Hagenhuber, now 81, became a steelworker in northwest Indiana. His friend and classmate, Karol Wojtyla, became a priest, bishop, cardinal, and pope.
The two have reunited several times, even after Hagenhuber's friend became Pope John Paul II. The pope's physical stature has changed over the years, but his mind is still strong, Hagenhuber noted.
"I'm just the opposite,'' he said in an interview with the Northwest Indiana Catholic, newspaper of the Gary Diocese. "My mind is in bad shape, but my body is OK.''
The last time the two saw each other, in 1997, was at a school reunion in Zakopane, a mountain resort area in Poland known for its skiing.
"(The pope's) secretary was trying to limit his time to 15 minutes, but the pope dragged it out to a half-hour,'' Hagenhuber said. "He told us, `They bother us here. You come to Rome; we'll have more time.'''
He said he and the pope exchange Christmas cards and sometimes the pontiff includes a gift, such as oplatki, thin bread wafers traditionally broken and shared at Christmas in Poland.
The pope writes personal notes on the cards, usually opening with "Drogi Lolku" (Dear Lolek). Karol is "Charles" in Polish; Lolek is the equivalent of the English nickname "Chuck."
While Hagenhuber was the top athlete in high school, he said Wojtyla was the top student. The latter also had a love for the stage and often had the lead role in school plays, while Hagenhuber's father was in charge of makeup.
"We thought he'd make a good actor. He loved the theater; it's in his blood," Hagenhuber said. "Now he's performing not to thousands, but to millions. He has that charisma."
He recalled his shock the day his friend was elected pope.
"I was at work in the mill and somebody came by and said, `Your buddy has been elected pope.' I couldn't believe it. I almost cried," Hagenhuber said. "It was impossible to think that — the first ever Polish pope, after all those Italians.''
When he sent the new pope a congratulatory card, he included a poem he had written in Polish.
"He responded,'' Hagenhuber said. "That's when we started exchanging cards and letters."
Hagenhuber said his father operated a pastry shop in Wadowice that Wojtyla liked to visit. On a return to his home town as pope in June 1999, the pontiff publicly recalled his favorite pastries there, cream cakes known as kremowki.
Sales of the pastries soared after the papal endorsement, and in some areas they are now known as "pope's slices," Hagenhuber said.
Hagenhuber no longer remembers how his father made them. "I forgot the recipe,'' he laments.
While the young Wojtyla began to study secretly for the priesthood during the war and was ordained shortly after it ended, Hagenhuber escaped Poland through Russia and the former Czechoslovakia and eventually reached America.
The former schoolmates did not reunite until 1964, the year Karol Wojtyla was made archbishop of Krakow. Hagenhuber and his wife, Vera, took a vacation in Poland and visited him.
Hagenhuber said he felt tongue-tied when they met. "I did not know how to talk to him. I called him `Your Excellency,' but he said, `What's wrong with you? Have you forgotten my name?' He was so down-to-earth."
Recalling the visit, Hagenhuber said, "He always wore a worn-out cassock and his shoes were re-soled. He did not look like an archbishop. An ordinary priest looked better. I thought I'd give him some money, but he wouldn't take it. He said to put it in the box in church. He wasn't taking it.''
They met again in 1976 when then-Cardinal Wojtyla visited Five Holy Martyrs Church in Chicago.
Hagenhuber retired from the steel mill in 1982 after working there 30 years. He has two children, Rita and George, and two grandsons, Eric and Karol. His wife died of cancer in 1995.
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