The Life and Legacy of Pope John Paul II by Wyatt North

Karol Jozef Wojtila was born May 18, 1920, to Karol and Emilia Wojtila. He would be known to family and friends by the nickname, “Lolek.” His elder brother Edmund (known as “Mundek”) had been born a distant fourteen years earlier, while an older sister, Olga, had lived only a few brief weeks. His father was a noncommissioned officer in the fledgling Polish army, working in the quartermaster store. Karol, Sr. had previously served in the Austro-Hungarian army, and the Jozef in his son’s name was probably in honor of the Emperor Franz Jozef, or alternatively, the Polish leader Jozef Pilsudsky. Karol Jozef was baptized by a military chaplain at the parish church of St. Mary’s.
     
    The town of Wadowice, where the Wojtila family lived, was nestled in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. It was only thirty miles from the cultured city of Krakow, which could be reached by train. Not far was the town of Oswiecim, which in only a few short years would become infamous under its German name, Auschwitz. During Karol’s formative years, Wadowice held as many as 10,000 residents. Horse-drawn conveyances were the rule, while cars were still the exception. Nevertheless, as the county seat, Wadowice boasted government administrative offices, as well as a teacher’s college and a few theaters, including a movie theater. It was also the site of the army garrison where Karol, Sr. served and which was a large employer in the area.
     
    Years later, Pope John Paul observed that he had already lost all the people he loved by the time he was twenty. The first to be lost was his mother. Emilia had suffered from heart and kidney problems since childhood. She became increasingly ill and died in 1929 at the age of forty-five, when Karol was not yet nine. This may be the reason that in 1927 Karol, Sr. took early retirement from the military with the rank of captain. (He continued to be known to everyone in town as “Captain.”) With the death of Emilia, the rearing of their young son fell entirely to the retired military man. The older Edmund was no longer living at home at the time. Karol’s friend, Jerzy Kluger, later recalled how he and Karol played in the Wojtila apartment a good bit after Emilia’s death, because the sensitive Karol did not want his father to be alone in his grief. Tragedy struck again when a mere three years after the death of Emilia, Edmund succumbed to scarlet fever. By then a doctor and living in Bielsko, Edmund had been caring for hospital patients during an outbreak of the disease when he contracted it himself and died within days. Edmund was only twenty-six years old.
     
    Karol attended the public high school for boys. The curriculum included Latin and Greek. From his father he also learned German. Thus began his development as a polyglot. Karol was active in a number of extra-curricular activities, including the school’s Anti-Aircraft and Gas Weapons Defense League, which was an unfortunate product of the politically troubled 1930s. An outstanding athlete, he excelled as a soccer goalkeeper. Known later as the pope who skied, in his youth he also hiked, swam in the river, and played hockey on frozen ponds. Even as a cardinal, he went kayaking. His deepest passion, however, was acting in youth theater as he came to realize the power of both the written and the spoken word. Upon graduation from high school, he was valedictorian of his class. People who knew him in his youth describe Karol as having been sweet and loving, an attribute they attest he retained throughout his life.
     
    Poland at the time was newly resurgent, having only regained its independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918. Polish nationalism was in the air. Karol’s father was strict, but a man of sterling character and integrity, an autodidact who taught his son Polish national pride and an appreciation for Polish literature and the arts. The elder Wojtila would regale Karol and his friend Jerzy with mesmerizing stories about Polish