Jews and Catholics Bid for Pope's Family Home

The two rooms and a kitchen in southern Poland where Karol Wojtyla was born in 1920 is now a shrine to the memory of the late Pope John Paul II, visited by up to 5,000 pilgrims every day.

The property, owned by the heirs of a local Jewish family living in the US, is also now the target of a discreet bidding war pitting the Archbishop of Krakow, the pontiff's former confidante, against Polish and American Jewish organisations.

The owners of the 19th century house in a little street behind the basilica in the southern town of Wadowice want to sell the property and expect it to fetch $1m (£600,000) for the place that the Wojtyla family rented. John Paul was born in the house in May 1920 and lived there until he moved to Krakow at the age of 18.

The new Archbishop of Krakow, Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul's private secretary until his death, has let it be known that the archdiocese wants to buy the house, but is balking at the vendor's price, about four times the price of a similar property in the town. "A shocking price," Stanislaw Kotarba of the Wadowice council told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.

But Tadeusz Jakubowicz, the head of Krakow's Jewish community, said his organisation hoped to raise the money to buy the property, then make a present of it to the town of Wadowice, insisting that it be maintained as a museum to Poland's only pope.

He told the Polish news agency that Krakow's Jews wanted to buy the house to honour John Paul and in tribute to his efforts to heal the often painful relations between Poland's Roman Catholics and Jews.

"That would be a fine gesture," Mr Jakubowicz said.

An American rabbi was expected in Krakow later this month to mediate in the affair, hoping to secure a solution that keeps everyone happy, Mr Jakubowicz added.

"I don't think the price is exorbitant," he said. "I doubt if anyone wants to buy only to resell at a higher price."

The house was bought in 1911 by a local Jewish family, many of whom perished in the Nazi death camps.

The late pope's parents rented the rooms in 1919 months before John Paul was born and his mother died there when he was nine years old.