Early life of Pope John Paul II
Encyclopedia
The early life of Pope John Paul II
covers the period in his life from his birth in 1920 to his ordination to the priesthood in 1946.
Karol Józef Wojtyła was born on 18 May 1920 in Wadowice
near the city of Kraków
in southern Poland
, son of a former officer in the Austrian Habsburg army whose name was also Karol Wojtyła, and Emilia Kaczorowska. According to a now very popular Wadowice legend, Emilia used to tell fellow townsfolk that her Karol would be "a great man one day." As a child Karol was called Lolek by friends and family.
His mother died in childbirth in 1929. On hearing of her death, he composed himself and said, "It was God's will." After Emilia's death, his father, an intensely religious man who did most of the housework, brought up Karol so that he could study.
His only sister, Olga, died in infancy before Karol was born.
He grew close to his brother Edmund, whom Karol had nicknamed Mundek. Edmund graduated from the Jagiellonian University
in Kraków
and practised as a doctor
in Wadowice
. There was an epidemic of scarlet fever
in the winter of 1932, and he contracted the disease from one of his patients. Edmund died four days later, on 5 December, aged 26; Karol, now 12, was profoundly affected. He reflected on this fifty years later, in a speech he made at the Jagiellonian University
: “These are events that became deeply engraved in my memory, my brother's death perhaps even deeper than my mother's death—equally because of the special circumstances, one may say tragic ones, and in view of my greater maturity at the time.”
Karol's youth was influenced by numerous contacts with the vibrant and prospering Jewish community of Wadowice. He often played football (soccer), as a goalkeeper, and was a supporter of Polish club
Cracovia. School football games were often organised between teams of Jews and Catholics, and due to the anti-Jewish feelings of the time, there was a potential for events to sometimes turn ‘nasty’. Karol, however, cheerfully offered himself as a substitute goalkeeper on the Jewish side if they were short of players.
It was around this time that the young Karol had his first serious relationship with a girl. He became close to a girl called Ginka Beer, described as ‘a Jewish beauty, with stupendous eyes and jet black hair, slender, a superb actress’.
In high school, he joined and soon became president of ‘The Society of Mary’ (a lay society, not to be confused with the Marianists
).
Papal biographer George Weigel
recalls that when Karol was around fifteen a young person playfully pointed a gun at him not realising that it was loaded. On pressing the trigger the gun fired and narrowly missed the target. He would escape from other near death incidents as a young seminarian and later as Pope.
high school in Wadowice
, in the summer of 1938, Karol Wojtyła and his father left Wadowice and moved to Kraków
, the former capital of Poland
, where he enrolled at the Jagiellonian University
in the autumn semester. In his freshman year, Wojtyła studied Philosophy, Polish language and literature, introductory Russian, and Old Church Slavonic
. He also took private lessons in French. He worked as a volunteer librarian and did compulsory military training
in the Academic Legion, but refused to hold or fire a weapon. At the end of the 1938-39 academic year
, he played Sagittarius in a fantasy-fable, The Moonlight Cavalier, produced by an experimental theatre
troupe.
In his youth he was an athlete, actor
and playwright
, and learned as many as twelve languages. By the time he was Pope he spoke nine language
s fluently: Polish
, Latin
, Ancient Greek
, Italian
, French
, German
, English
, Spanish
and ortuguese language|Portuguese.
invaded
Poland, and the country was subsequently occupied by German and Soviet forces. At the outbreak of War, Karol and his father fled eastwards from Kraków
with thousands of other Poles. They sometimes found themselves in ditches, taking cover from strafing Luftwaffe
aircraft. After walking 120 miles, they learned of the Soviet invasion of Poland
and were obliged to return to Kraków. In November, 184 academics of the Jagiellonian University
were arrested and the university suppressed. All able-bodied
males had to have a job.
In the first year of the war Karol worked as a messenger for a restaurant. This light work enabled him to continue his education and theatrical career and in acts of cultural resistance. He also intensified his study of French. From the autumn of 1940 Karol worked for almost four years as a manual labour
er in a limestone quarry, and was well paid. His father died in 1941 because of a heart attack
. In 1942, he entered the underground seminary
run by Cardinal Sapieha
, the archbishop of Kraków. B'nai B'rith
and other authorities have testified that he helped Jews find refuge from the Nazis.
On 29 February 1944, Karol was walking home from work at the quarry when he was knocked down by a German truck. The German officers tending the injured Wojtyła, and the decision to commandeer a passing truck for use as an ambulance for the unconscious patient, is in sharp contrast to the harshness normally expected from the occupying forces during this period. He spent two weeks in hospital and suffered severe concussion, numerous cuts and a shoulder injury. This accident and his survival seemed to Wojtyła a confirmation of his priestly vocation. In August 1944, the Warsaw uprising
began, and the Gestapo
swept the city of Kraków on 6 August, "Black Sunday", rounding up young men to avoid a similar uprising there. Wojtyła escaped by hiding behind a door as the Gestapo searched the house he lived in, and escaped to the Archbishop's residence, where he stayed until after the war.
On the night of 17 January 1945, the Germans abandoned the city without a fight. The seminarians reclaimed the old seminary, which was in ruins. Wojtyła and another seminarian volunteered for the odious task of chopping up and carting away piles of frozen excrement from the lavatories. In the same month of that year, Wojtyła personally helped a 14 year old Jewish refugee girl named Edith Zierer who had run away from a Nazi labor camp
in Częstochowa
. Zierer was attempting to reach her family in Kraków but had collapsed from cold and exhaustion on a train platform in Jędrzejów
. No one helped but Wojtyła who approached her. Wojtyła gave Zierer some hot tea and food, personally carried her to a train and accompanied her to Kraków. Zierer credits Wojtyła for saving her life that day. In the chaos of post-war Poland
they became separated and Zierer would not hear of her benefactor again until she read that he was elected as the Pope in 1978. B'nai B'rith
and other authorities have said that Karol also helped many other Polish Jew
s to find refuge from the Nazi
s.
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
covers the period in his life from his birth in 1920 to his ordination to the priesthood in 1946.
Karol Józef Wojtyła was born on 18 May 1920 in Wadowice
Wadowice
Wadowice is a town in southern Poland, 50 km from Kraków with 19,200 inhabitants , situated on the Skawa river, confluence of Vistula, in the eastern part of Silesian Plateau...
near the city of Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
in southern Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, son of a former officer in the Austrian Habsburg army whose name was also Karol Wojtyła, and Emilia Kaczorowska. According to a now very popular Wadowice legend, Emilia used to tell fellow townsfolk that her Karol would be "a great man one day." As a child Karol was called Lolek by friends and family.
His mother died in childbirth in 1929. On hearing of her death, he composed himself and said, "It was God's will." After Emilia's death, his father, an intensely religious man who did most of the housework, brought up Karol so that he could study.
His only sister, Olga, died in infancy before Karol was born.
He grew close to his brother Edmund, whom Karol had nicknamed Mundek. Edmund graduated from the Jagiellonian University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
and practised as a doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
in Wadowice
Wadowice
Wadowice is a town in southern Poland, 50 km from Kraków with 19,200 inhabitants , situated on the Skawa river, confluence of Vistula, in the eastern part of Silesian Plateau...
. There was an epidemic of scarlet fever
Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is a disease caused by exotoxin released by Streptococcus pyogenes. Once a major cause of death, it is now effectively treated with antibiotics...
in the winter of 1932, and he contracted the disease from one of his patients. Edmund died four days later, on 5 December, aged 26; Karol, now 12, was profoundly affected. He reflected on this fifty years later, in a speech he made at the Jagiellonian University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
: “These are events that became deeply engraved in my memory, my brother's death perhaps even deeper than my mother's death—equally because of the special circumstances, one may say tragic ones, and in view of my greater maturity at the time.”
Karol's youth was influenced by numerous contacts with the vibrant and prospering Jewish community of Wadowice. He often played football (soccer), as a goalkeeper, and was a supporter of Polish club
Football team
A football team is the collective name given to a group of players selected together in the various team sports known as football.Such teams could be selected to play in an against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-star team or even selected as a...
Cracovia. School football games were often organised between teams of Jews and Catholics, and due to the anti-Jewish feelings of the time, there was a potential for events to sometimes turn ‘nasty’. Karol, however, cheerfully offered himself as a substitute goalkeeper on the Jewish side if they were short of players.
It was around this time that the young Karol had his first serious relationship with a girl. He became close to a girl called Ginka Beer, described as ‘a Jewish beauty, with stupendous eyes and jet black hair, slender, a superb actress’.
In high school, he joined and soon became president of ‘The Society of Mary’ (a lay society, not to be confused with the Marianists
Society of Mary (Marianists)
The Society of Mary, a Roman Catholic Marian Society, is a congregation of brothers and priests called The Marianists or Marianist Brothers and Priests. The Society was founded by Blessed William Joseph Chaminade, a priest who survived the anti-clerical persecution during the French Revolution. ...
).
Papal biographer George Weigel
George Weigel
George Weigel is an American author, and political and social activist. He currently serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Weigel was the Founding President of the James Madison Foundation...
recalls that when Karol was around fifteen a young person playfully pointed a gun at him not realising that it was loaded. On pressing the trigger the gun fired and narrowly missed the target. He would escape from other near death incidents as a young seminarian and later as Pope.
University
After completing his studies at the Marcin WadowitaMarcin Wadowita
Marcin Wadowita was a Polish priest, theologian, professor and chancellor of the Jagiellonian University....
high school in Wadowice
Wadowice
Wadowice is a town in southern Poland, 50 km from Kraków with 19,200 inhabitants , situated on the Skawa river, confluence of Vistula, in the eastern part of Silesian Plateau...
, in the summer of 1938, Karol Wojtyła and his father left Wadowice and moved to Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, the former capital of Poland
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, where he enrolled at the Jagiellonian University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
in the autumn semester. In his freshman year, Wojtyła studied Philosophy, Polish language and literature, introductory Russian, and Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
. He also took private lessons in French. He worked as a volunteer librarian and did compulsory military training
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
in the Academic Legion, but refused to hold or fire a weapon. At the end of the 1938-39 academic year
Academic term
An academic term is a division of an academic year, the time during which a school, college or university holds classes. These divisions may be called terms...
, he played Sagittarius in a fantasy-fable, The Moonlight Cavalier, produced by an experimental theatre
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
troupe.
In his youth he was an athlete, actor
Acting
Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....
and playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, and learned as many as twelve languages. By the time he was Pope he spoke nine language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s fluently: Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and ortuguese language|Portuguese.
The Second World War
In September 1939, GermanyNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
invaded
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
Poland, and the country was subsequently occupied by German and Soviet forces. At the outbreak of War, Karol and his father fled eastwards from Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
with thousands of other Poles. They sometimes found themselves in ditches, taking cover from strafing Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
aircraft. After walking 120 miles, they learned of the Soviet invasion of Poland
Soviet invasion of Poland
Soviet invasion of Poland can refer to:* the second phase of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 when Soviet armies marched on Warsaw, Poland* Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939 when Soviet Union allied with Nazi Germany attacked Second Polish Republic...
and were obliged to return to Kraków. In November, 184 academics of the Jagiellonian University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
were arrested and the university suppressed. All able-bodied
Able-bodied
Able-bodied refers, in law, to an individual's physical or mental capacity for gainful employment or military service, and it is in this sense that the term is also used regarding eligibility for payment of child support or alimony....
males had to have a job.
In the first year of the war Karol worked as a messenger for a restaurant. This light work enabled him to continue his education and theatrical career and in acts of cultural resistance. He also intensified his study of French. From the autumn of 1940 Karol worked for almost four years as a manual labour
Manual labour
Manual labour , manual or manual work is physical work done by people, most especially in contrast to that done by machines, and also to that done by working animals...
er in a limestone quarry, and was well paid. His father died in 1941 because of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
. In 1942, he entered the underground seminary
Education in Poland during World War II
This article covers the topic of underground education in Poland during World War II. Secret learning prepared new cadres for the post-war reconstruction of Poland and countered the German and Soviet threat to exterminate the Polish culture....
run by Cardinal Sapieha
Adam Stefan Sapieha
Prince Adam Stefan Stanisław Bonifacy Józef Sapieha was a Polish cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Kraków. Between 1922–1923 he was a senator of the Second Rzeczpospolita. In 1946, Pope Pius XII created him Cardinal....
, the archbishop of Kraków. B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith International |Covenant]]" is the oldest continually operating Jewish service organization in the world. It was initially founded as the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith in New York City, on , 1843, by Henry Jones and 11 others....
and other authorities have testified that he helped Jews find refuge from the Nazis.
On 29 February 1944, Karol was walking home from work at the quarry when he was knocked down by a German truck. The German officers tending the injured Wojtyła, and the decision to commandeer a passing truck for use as an ambulance for the unconscious patient, is in sharp contrast to the harshness normally expected from the occupying forces during this period. He spent two weeks in hospital and suffered severe concussion, numerous cuts and a shoulder injury. This accident and his survival seemed to Wojtyła a confirmation of his priestly vocation. In August 1944, the Warsaw uprising
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...
began, and the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
swept the city of Kraków on 6 August, "Black Sunday", rounding up young men to avoid a similar uprising there. Wojtyła escaped by hiding behind a door as the Gestapo searched the house he lived in, and escaped to the Archbishop's residence, where he stayed until after the war.
On the night of 17 January 1945, the Germans abandoned the city without a fight. The seminarians reclaimed the old seminary, which was in ruins. Wojtyła and another seminarian volunteered for the odious task of chopping up and carting away piles of frozen excrement from the lavatories. In the same month of that year, Wojtyła personally helped a 14 year old Jewish refugee girl named Edith Zierer who had run away from a Nazi labor camp
Labor camp
A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
in Częstochowa
Czestochowa
Częstochowa is a city in south Poland on the Warta River with 240,027 inhabitants . It has been situated in the Silesian Voivodeship since 1999, and was previously the capital of Częstochowa Voivodeship...
. Zierer was attempting to reach her family in Kraków but had collapsed from cold and exhaustion on a train platform in Jędrzejów
Jedrzejów
Jędrzejów is a town in Poland, located in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, about 35 km southwest of Kielce. It is the capital of Jędrzejów County. It has 18,069 inhabitants ....
. No one helped but Wojtyła who approached her. Wojtyła gave Zierer some hot tea and food, personally carried her to a train and accompanied her to Kraków. Zierer credits Wojtyła for saving her life that day. In the chaos of post-war Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
they became separated and Zierer would not hear of her benefactor again until she read that he was elected as the Pope in 1978. B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith International |Covenant]]" is the oldest continually operating Jewish service organization in the world. It was initially founded as the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith in New York City, on , 1843, by Henry Jones and 11 others....
and other authorities have said that Karol also helped many other Polish Jew
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
s to find refuge from the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
s.