Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek was born in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire, to Count Jerzy Skarbek and Stefania Goldfeder.
Krystyna Skarbek was born on 1 May 1908 in Warsaw, at that time a city under the control of the Russian Empire. She was the daughter of Count Jerzy Skarbek, a member of the Polish landed aristocracy, and Stefania Goldfeder, the daughter of a wealthy assimilated Jewish banking family. This union of impoverished nobility and prosperous bourgeoisie shaped her early life, giving her both the social polish of the aristocracy and, later, exposure to antisemitic prejudice due to her mother's heritage.
She grew up amid the turbulence of a Poland re-emerging as an independent state after World War I, developing a fierce patriotism, a love of skiing and horseback riding, and a reputation as a fearless, headstrong young woman. These qualities would prove essential decades later, when she became one of the Second World War's most celebrated secret agents, operating under the British alias Christine Granville.
Her birth in Warsaw and her mixed heritage are frequently cited by biographers as foundational to understanding both the resilience and the sense of dual identity that characterized her extraordinary espionage career, during which she risked her life repeatedly for Polish and Allied causes.