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.
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 & verification
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.
Source 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.
Source accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 146
Last verified: Not yet verified
Our sourcing standardsNo photograph of this one has been published. If you have taken one, or know when it arrived or who gave it, we would like to hear. Contribute to this record