You can now use a special application to visit The Holy Father John Paul II Family Home Museum in Wadowice without leaving your home.

The application was made available on 11 of December on Google Play (for Android) and AppStore (for IOS systems) and is   free of charge. Everyone in Poland and around the world can get acquainted with museum collections using a smartphone of any type and cardboard boxes. The application not only allows you to look at the Museum exhibits or rooms in the family home of John Paul II, but allows you also to discover or rediscover the Pope’s character, his activity and heritage. Pioneer projectResources of the museum in Wadowice are available in the form of a VR application (virtual reality) containing 360-degree films presenting selected rooms of museum, computer animations and 3D scans of individual exhibits, sound recordings and text elements that allow you to familiarize yourself with the collections made available in the application and their context.

What we will see

People using the application will be able to look around the living room in the apartment of Wojtyła, where the family life took place and where nowadays you can see memorabilia belonging to the family of the Pope and himself. However, when it comes to a replica of the Holy Door from the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome and fourteen columns with fragments of papal encyclicals, you will see them after virtually entering the room „Church built on the rock of love”. Outside the rooms, the application – thanks to the use of spatial projections and animations – will allow you to get acquainted with valuable collections. The presentations have been enriched with descriptions and voice-over recordings that will tell the story of individual exhibits. It will be possible to look closely at, for example, a copy of Karol Wojtyla’s secondary school certificate from May 14, 1938, his master’s degree diploma from the Jagiellonian University, the assignment of work, the so-called application, which send the priest Karol Wojtyla to his first parish in Niegowić, or the cover and selected photographs from Wojtyla’s family album. You can also see the ski equipment of the Pope, his wool sweater and sneakers, in which – as a young priest – he wandered with young people. Among the exhibits presented in the app, there is also the Carmelite scapular of Karol Wojtyła and a part of a set of lead soldiers whom he played with in childhood. There are, of course, collections closely related to the pontificate of John Paul II – his cassock from the first pilgrimage to Poland, pectoral and miter prepared for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, or cards with requests and testimonies of favors received through the intercession of John Paul II. Among other interesting things, you can find here a pebble from the South Pass of Mount Everest, brought down by Wanda Rutkiewicz, who reached the summit on October 16, 1978. The pebble was donated to John Paul II by a mountain climber during their meeting in Krakow.