What is your exact birthdate?

Jan Karski: April 24, in my passport. I was born April 24, 1914. Now, jokingly, my mother was always quarreling with my father, telling us: When they took me to be baptized at the age of six months or something, my father, my godfather (a certain Jaszinski), the priest-- all of them were drunk. This was Poland. No sissies. No stupid Americans or English, they drink to be in a better mood. In Poland, alcohol is expensive. You drink to get drunk. 

"So my mother was joking that they gave the wrong date. She said I was born in June, not in April. And also a complication, because when I was born, still Russia was there. And Russian calendar is 13 days earlier than ours. So when Poland emerged, the day of my birth was 13 days later. So by our standard, the date was April 11."  

"My best friends, my first close buddies, were Jewish boys. Salus Fuchs I remember to this day, he wanted to be a great pianist. I was 13-14 years old. I didn't see the world behind him." 

"Since the age of 12 I became a member of religious organization Sodalicja Mariańska. I was very religious. By our modern standard you could call it fanatic or bigoted Catholic, which I am not now, an old man." 

Can you tell me about your family and your life before the war?

Jan Karski: "It was a normal life. A middle-class family, with the exception that my mother was very religious. She made me exceedingly religious. When I was a young boy I was fanatically Catholic. My education came from the Jesuits. I actually wanted to make heaven” 

"We would look at how [Adam] was painted by Michaelangelo, by da Vinci. He was cleancut, good-looking, innocent. 'It was that Eve! That Eve! With that serpent behind her!' At that time, I remember, we didn't know what did Eve actually do to Adam to make him vicious and to bring this original sin upon the world. We had no idea what is sex, what do you do with the girl. I only knew: 'Don't touch the girls. Because serpent.'" [laughter] 

"My mother never called him Pilsudski. She only called him 'father of the country.' 'You must be worthy of the father of our country.' I was fanatically pro-Pilsudski. Fanatically. Today I am a Pilsudskite. Because he was a dictator. But he became a dictator because there was such chaos in Poland: 90 different political parties, no stable government, governments would be emerging and collapse two weeks later, because every government was a coalition. Five, six, seven parties. There was no stability, chaos, poverty. Into this Pilsudski came and established a military dictatorship. He was extremely popular in Poland among the masses. He was incorruptible. He had two daughters, and they were attending some regular public school, and they went to school by regular tramways. He didn't give them a government car. His wife, Madame Pilsudska, never owned a fur. He was a benevolent dictator. He was an old man, father of the country."

Jan Karski interviewed by E. Thomas Wood - click here to read more