The record
A segment unveiled on what would have been John Paul II's hundredth birthday, given by the German embassy to the museum that tells his part in the end of communist rule.
A segment was unveiled at the entrance of the Museum of John Paul II, inside the Temple of Divine Providence in Wilanów, on 18 May 2020 — the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Karol Wojtyła. The German embassy in Warsaw donated it; the piece came from a German private collector, and the museum belongs to the Warsaw archdiocese. The segment comes from the front row of the Wall between the centre of Berlin and Treptow, and the Federal Republic paid for it. At the ceremony the ambassador handed the deed of gift to the Polish prime minister, and the segment was taken under the dome of the Temple straight afterwards.
Like the segment installed at the Vatican in 1990, it argues that the Polish pope helped end communist rule and the division of Europe. The museum's director, Marcin Adamczewski, pointed at the unveiling to Wojtyła's 1979 visit to Poland, when something like ten million people came to see him and he became a figure of political resistance; the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, pointed to Solidarność, founded the year after that visit. The German ambassador, Rolf Nikel, said the segment was meant to express German gratitude to Poland and to the Polish pope for their part in ending the division of Germany.
This is not Warsaw's only piece of the Wall. Four sections are built into the Solidarity memorial at the junction of Świętokrzyska and Kopernika, inaugurated in 2021, with quotations from Reagan and John Paul II set into the concrete. That site has no record in this catalogue yet; this record was held back for a time because it was thought to be a bad position for the memorial, and the Foundation's own entry shows instead that it is a second Warsaw site, nine kilometres south.
How did it get here?
Given by the German embassy in Warsaw, acquired from a German private collector, and unveiled on 18 May 2020 for the centenary of John Paul II's birth.
Sources
Listed by the Federal Foundation as #146.
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide, site entry ↗
The unveiling on 18 May 2020 at the Museum of John Paul II in the Temple of Divine Providence, the German embassy's donation of a segment from a German collector, the comparison with the Vatican segment of 1990, and the remarks of Marcin Adamczewski, Mateusz Morawiecki and Rolf Nikel.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17
Fragment muru berlińskiego trafił do Mt 5,14 | Muzeum Jana Pawła II i Prymasa Wyszyńskiego ↗
The Archdiocese of Warsaw, 18 May 2020: on the centenary of John Paul II's birth a fragment of the Wall was given to the museum at Wilanów; the German ambassador, Rolf Nikel, handed the deed of gift to the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, with Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz present, and the fragment was then taken under the dome of the Temple of Divine Providence, where the museum is.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Fragment Muru Berlińskiego trafi do Muzeum Jana Pawła II i Prymasa Wyszyńskiego ↗
Niedziela, 18 May 2020: the original fragment, handed over in front of the Temple of Divine Providence with Ambassador Rolf Nikel and Cardinal Nycz present, comes from the front row of the Wall between central Berlin and Treptow and was paid for by the Federal Republic of Germany.
Press reportSource accessed 2026-09-17
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 146
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