Tusk was born in Gdańsk in northern Poland. He has Polish, German (maternal grandmother) and Kashubian ancestry. His father, also named Donald Tusk (1930–1972), was a carpenter, and his mother, Ewa (née Dawidowska) Tusk (1934–2009), was a nurse. The family's language was Danzig German. His grandfather, Józef Tusk (1907–1987), was a railway official who was imprisoned at the Neuengamme concentration camp; later, as a former citizen of the Free City of Danzig, he was apparently conscripted by German authorities into the Wehrmacht. Later on, he was successful in joining the Polish Armed Forces in the West.