Q 01/05

In 1979 John Paul II became the first pope to visit which Nazi death camp?

A) Treblinka

B) Majdanek

C) Auschwitz

D) Sobibor

Answer · why

C) Auschwitz

Auschwitz came on his first trip home as pope; his boyhood friend Jerzy Kluger had lost his mother and sister in the Nazi camps, and the pope made rec...

Q 02/05

John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since which Dutchman, elected in 1522?

A) Leo X

B) Julius II

C) Adrian VI

D) Clement VII

Answer · why

C) Adrian VI

Adrian VI, the only Dutch pope, had tutored the future emperor Charles V; Romans resented him as an outsider, and after his death in 1523 no other non...

Q 03/05

In which small Polish town was John Paul II born?

A) Nowy Sącz

B) Tarnów

C) Zakopane

D) Wadowice

Answer · why

D) Wadowice

Wadowice heard him recall, on a visit as pope in 1999, how he and his classmates went for cream cakes after their final exams; the town's cake has bee...

Q 04/05

As a schoolboy, the future pope played football in which position?

A) Centre-back

B) Striker

C) Goalkeeper

D) Winger

Answer · why

C) Goalkeeper

Goalkeeper was his position, at times for the Jewish side in school matches; his Jewish classmate Jerzy Kluger later became his go-between with Israel...

Q 05/05

During the Nazi occupation, Wojtyła avoided deportation by working where?

A) A textile mill and a bakery

B) A quarry and a chemical plant

C) A coal mine and a steel mill

D) A shipyard and a brewery

Answer · why

B) A quarry and a chemical plant

A quarry and a chemical plant: the Solvay works counted as essential to the German war effort, so the job shielded him from deportation while he studi...