Jan Karski (born Jan Romuald Kozielewski) was born on 24 June 1914 in Łódź, Poland. In 1935, having completed degrees in law and diplomatic studies at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów, Karski began working at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In September 1939, following the outbreak of the Second World War, Karski was mobilised as an officer in a mounted artillery unit and was taken prisoner by Soviet forces. Two months later, he escaped from a transport convoy and returned to Warsaw, where he joined the Polish underground resistance movement. 

Thanks to his remarkable memory and fluency in foreign languages, Karski was entrusted with the highly sensitive role of political courier for the Polish Underground State.

In January 1940, Karski undertook his first mission as a courier and emissary, travelling to Paris and Angers. During a subsequent mission to France, he was arrested by the Gestapo.

 Subjected to brutal interrogation, he attempted suicide, fearing he might break under torture and betray the resistance. He survived and was taken to a prison hospital, from which he was later rescued by members of the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), a major underground resistance organisation.

In 1942, using the alias Jan Karski – a name he would adopt permanently – he embarked on another mission, this time to Britain and the United States. One of his principal tasks was to alert the Allies to the dire plight of Jews under Nazi occupation. To gather credible information, he twice infiltrated the Warsaw Ghetto and visited a transit camp in Izbica, a waystation for Jews being deported to extermination camps.

Karski delivered eyewitness testimony of German atrocities to numerous British and American politicians, journalists, and cultural figures. Among those he met were British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and acclaimed author H. G. Wells. 

His pleas for intervention were largely ineffective, as most of his interlocutors doubted the scale of the atrocities or chose to dismiss his reports.

Despite the importance of Karski’s reports, they failed to shift Allied wartime policy. Western leaders – and even some prominent Jewish figures in the United States – were reluctant to act on his disturbing accounts. The prevailing assumption remained that the only viable path to saving Europe’s Jews lay in defeating Nazi Germany militarily.

After the war, Karski remained in exile in the United States. He pursued further academic studies, earning a PhD in political science at Georgetown University in Washington, where he taught international relations and the theory of communism for the next forty years. Among his students was young Bill Clinton, the future President of the United States.

Karski also wrote several books, the most renowned of which is Story of a Secret State, published in the United States in 1944. The book, which was a compelling memoir of his wartime experiences, became a bestseller and was translated into multiple languages.

The book recounts Karski’s missions, his arrest and torture by the Gestapo, and his dramatic rescue. It also offers a rare inside view of the workings of the Polish Underground State and the everyday reality of life under occupation. The book’s promotion was supported by Emery Reves, the literary agent representing figures such as Winston Churchill in America.

Jan Karski received numerous state decorations in recognition of his extraordinary contributions. He was named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, a title bestowed upon non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. 

Eight universities in Poland and abroad awarded him honorary doctorates. He was also made a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle – Poland’s highest state honour – and was granted an honorary citizenship of Israel.

Karski passed away on 13 July 2000 in Washington, D.C.

In 2012, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian honour in the United States.

Source: Dzieje.pl

Photo:@ArkadiuszCimoch

Tomasz Modrzejewski