ROME - Italian film critics got their first viewing Thursday of a new miniseries about Pope John Paul II that focuses on the pontiff's early years, when his native Poland was under brutal Nazi occupation.

"Karol, a Man Who Became Pope" was put into production months before his death April 2. The pope's given name was Karol Wojtyla.

When John Paul was 20, his father died, leaving him with no immediate family in a country under Nazi domination. He studied for the priesthood clandestinely and, in 1944, his name appeared on a Nazi blacklist for his activities in the Christian democratic underground.

B'nai B'rith and other organizations testified that he helped Jews find refuge from the Nazis.

"We were trying not to copy Karol Wojtyla, not to copy his gestures, his voice, but to give symbols to try to touch the fragments of his great personality," Piotr Adamczyk, a Polish actor who plays the young John Paul, said Thursday.

"I'm very, very happy that this film was shot in Poland because we were able to give a lot of the Polish mentality in the film - a lot of the Polish history, truthful history."

Giacomo Battiato, the producer behind the miniseries, hailed John Paul for his inclusiveness and for reaching out to the downtrodden.

"The message of John Paul II ... is the respect of human life, the respect of the most unhappy people," he said. "What is interesting, I think and I hope, is that you understand while you look through his life why this message became his aim - his main task."

In a 1999 visit to his birthplace, John Paul reminisced about growing up in a small town, recalling his friends, his home and Jewish neighbors who were sent to death camps by the Nazis.

The film opens with Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939. One scene depicts John Paul as a cardinal in tears as votes were being counted during the 1978 conclave that elected him pope.

Although the filmmakers concede the movie includes some embellishments of John Paul's personal story, they insist they faced no objections from the Vatican over the $14.2 million project.

The first installment of the film - originally made in Polish but also dubbed into Italian - will be shown in Italy on Monday, when the secret conclave to elect a new pope gets under way in the Sistine Chapel.

The producers said the series would be released soon on DVD and home video.