– He was such a talented and charismatic man that I felt sorry whenever I saw him at a time when he was already sick, getting weaker, getting older.
Certainly, for the Pope himself and for his state of health, the crucial turning point was the assassination attempt. I was on the St. Peter’s Square at the time. I was standing very close to where Ali Agca was standing. Maybe ten meters from it… At that time I was not yet working in the palace elevator, I was employed in the Office of Papal Ceremonies, and that afternoon I was at the Bronze Gate. My task was to prepare the Audience logistically: setting up the barriers and so on. When the Pope was taken in the papamobile into the square, my friends and I closed the barriers so that no one from the outside would get on the route. I still have it in front of my eyes today. John Paul II goes around the square, during the first lap he had his back to the assassin and was facing the faithful standing from the inside of the square. A moment later, on the next detour, he was already facing Ali Agca. He took a little girl in his arms, whom he kissed just before the assassination, I saw it very well… and then I heard gunshots.
The assassin began to flee towards the colonnade, towards the exit from the square. Two nuns, late for the audience, entered the square and walked towards the route of the Pope’s detour. They hadn’t seen anything before; they didn’t know what had happened, because there were a lot of people around. They only heard people screaming to catch the assassin who literally ran into them; the two of them began to fight with him. They held him down and he was caught. Meanwhile, right next to me, a woman fell to the ground, wounded by one of the bullets fired from a pistol. She leaned over the railing and fell on the other side. In all the chaos, almost no one looked at her. She was bleeding heavily. I noticed it and we immediately called for help. The pope was immediately transported through the gate of Arco della Campane towards FAS – the Vatican clinic.
Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi “It happened in the Vatican”
Znak Publishing House. Kraków 2020
pages: 52 – 53
