Remembering the Humble Courage of Jan Karski
Early in the morning of September 1st, 1939, then-25-year-old Polish Army lieutenant, Jan Karski, received his much-anticipated baptism of fire…
Within hours of being attacked by Hitler’s Wehrmacht, Jan and his unit were forced into a fierce fighting withdrawal that, after more than two weeks of running battles, culminated in the medieval city of Tarnopol.
There, they hoped to join forces with the Kraków Cavalry Brigade; only to be “greeted” instead by a horde of invading Soviets…
Promptly disarmed and captured, Jan was among thousands of officers earmarked for execution; but, thanks to his quick thinking – swapping his uniform for that of a private – was exchanged in a prisoner swap of “proletarians”.
Crammed into a cattle car bound for a German labor camp, it was during the long and arduous journey, “Private Karski” jumped from the moving train and, trekking to the bomb-ravaged capital of Warsaw, joined the clandestine ranks of the Polish Home Army.
Tasked with conveying intelligence to his government-in-exile, he narrowly survived another brush with death when, in the summer of 1940, he was captured again…
Fearful that he would break under Gestapo interrogation, Jan slashed his own wrists with a concealed razor blade, and “waited to die”.
Knowing, however, the importance of keeping him alive, his captors rushed him to a nearby hospital, where doctors labored to save his life.
Later rescued by his resistance comrades, it wasn’t long before Jan was ready to embark upon his next death-defying mission…
Entrusted with infiltrating not just Warsaw’s Jewish Ghetto, but also, a far away “transit ghetto”, Jan was to “bear witness to the unspeakable”, and, if he survived, “relay the truth to the Allies.”
Accompanied by a young member of the Jewish Combat Organization, Jan ventured first into Warsaw's "Jewish district..."
There, he not only encountered “unprecedented hunger and misery” but, was “overwhelmed by the paralyzing stench of decomposing bodies.”
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Then, disguising himself as a Ukrainian auxiliary, Jan gained access to the distant transit ghetto, where he discovered “Jews, in their masses”, really were being sent to “special camps at Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor...”
Documenting his observations in a harrowing 12-page report, Jan then smuggled the latter across German-occupied Europe to No. 10 Downing Street; from where, he traveled onward to share a copy with the White House.
Yet, much to his dismay and chagrin, his vivid account describing the “total annihilation of European Jewry” was met not only with soul-destroying disbelief but, as a tragic consequence, infuriating passivity.
Thus, when Jan was honored as a Righteous Gentile, on this day in 1982, for alerting the world to the Judeocide, he responded by saying:
“I don’t feel worthy of being recognized…”
“I wanted to save millions of lives”, Jan told Yad Vashem.
“In the end, I failed my mission, for only I came out alive.”
Telling Yad Vashem that he “wanted to save millions of lives”, Jan concluded by lamenting:
“In the end, I failed my mission, for only I came out alive.”
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Addendum 1: -
German soldiers on the station platform of the distant “transit ghetto” Jan infiltrated during his death-defying mission to “bear witness to the unspeakable”.
Situated in the Polish town of Izbica, the ghetto that was created there became one of the largest of its kind in German-occupied Poland.
Home to more than 5,000 Polish Jews before the German occupation, almost all of them were massacred to make way for the tens of thousands of Austrian, Czechoslovakian, and German Jews who were sent to Izbica for one specific purpose:
Transportation to the gas chambers.
When describing the “chaos, the squalor” and "the hideousness” of Izbica, Jan said:
“There was a suffocating stench of sweat, filth, decay, damp straw, and excrement…”
“Screaming in pain and fear,” the Jews, he added, “were driven into the trains” that, “crammed to bursting with tightly packed human flesh… seemed to rock, throb, vibrate, rock, and jump as if bewitched…”
“I know”, Jan lamented, “that many people will not believe me… will think I exaggerate or invent. But I saw it, and it is not exaggerated or invented… I saw it, and that is the truth.”
Addendum 2: -
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler greeting Ukrainian “Trawnikimänner” at Sobibor death camp.
Named after the training establishment where they completed their military training – “'SS-Ausbildungslager (training camp)-Trawniki” – the Ukrainian Trawnikimänner performed a variety of roles during the Second World War.
As “willing helpers”, or, “Hilfswilliger”, during the “Holocaust by Bullets”, they murdered Jews in their masses; as support troops during the “liquidation” of Jewish ghettoes, they massacred tens of thousands; and, as guards in Hitler’s death camps, many operated the gas chambers where millions of Jews were martyred.
Although a few hundred Ukrainian Trawnikimänner were later captured and prosecuted by the Russians, almost all of them evaded justice at the war’s end.
While some faded back into their communities – where they were protected by friends and family – others fled to Western countries, where they were welcomed as “refugees”.
Addendum 3: -
A detailed map of the Warsaw ghetto.
Enclosed by a wall that stood over 10 feet in height, topped with razor wire, and surrounded by guards with orders to shoot escapees on sight, the ghetto imprisoned nearly half a million Jews in an area spanning just over a square mile.
Sealed from the outside world in November 1940, the Germans envisaged that the Jews would die through a combination of starvation, disease, and illness that, owing to the horrific sanitary conditions, took hold, and spread like wildfire.
By the summer of 1942, almost 100,000 ghetto Jews had “expired”; yet, with so many clinging to life, the Germans concluded that they’d have to “expedite” the Judeocide…
Thus launching the “Great Warsaw Action”, the latter saw German SS and Ukrainian auxiliaries move into the ghetto, where, from July through to September 1942, they seized some 300,000 Jewish men, women, and children, and deported them to their deaths in Treblinka.
As for those who survived “Grossaktion Warshau”, almost all were killed in 1943, when, following the initiation of the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, no fewer than 13,000 Jews died fighting, and nearly 60,000 were transported to the gas chambers.
Addendum 4: -
The striking eagle of the “Jewish Combat Organization”, whose young and fearless member led Jan into the horrific confines of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Created by leading figures of multiple Jewish youth movements, the “Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa” not only engaged in bold acts of sabotage and assassination but, it also enabled the mass rescue of Jews from deportation.
Made famous by its perhaps most-notable commander – Mordechai Anielewicz – the latter led the ŻOB through to his heroic martyrdom during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.
(https://williamsamueldespretter.substack.com/p/honoring-the-magnificent-resistance)
Like Mordechai, almost all who served in the ŻOB were martyred during the uprising.
As for those who survived, while some managed to escape to the “Aryan” side of the city, where they joined the ranks of the Polish Home Army, the vast majority were either executed on being captured, or, transported to their deaths in the gas chambers.
Addendum 5: -
When Jan was captured in the summer of 1940, he was attempting to smuggle intelligence to the Polish Government-in-Exile, then based in Paris.
After his attempted suicide, his Gestapo captors rushed Jan to a hospital in Nowy Sącz, Poland, where, unbeknown to them, the chief physician – Jan Slowikowski – was also a secret member of the Polish Home Army…
Saved by Doctor Slowikowski, the latter then organized Jan’s escape from the hospital by contacting his resistance comrades who, in turn, launched a daring commando operation to break him out.
Although successful, sadly, both Dr. Slowikowski and several of Jan’s compatriots were killed during the rescue mission.
Today, their names and sacrifice are remembered on this memorial plaque in the city of Nowy Sącz.
Addendum 6: -
An original page from Jan’s harrowing 12-page report.
Although very nearly captured for a third time during his 22-day journey to No. 10 Downing Street, Jan finally arrived there in late December 1942.
Shortly thereafter, he presented his report to Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Sir Anthony Eden MC, who, despite being “deeply moved”, told Jan that he would not do anything more than publicly condemn the Germans’ “bestial policy of cold-blooded [Jewish] extermination”, as Great Britain had “already done enough by accepting 100,000 [Jewish] refugees.”
Similarly, when Jan arrived in Washington D.C, in July 1943, he couldn’t understand how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – “one of the lords of humanity” – was seemingly more interested “about the condition of horses in Poland”, than he was about the “annihilation of European Jewry.”
Thus, at the war’s end, when Allied leaders expressed their shock and surprise at the Judeocide, Jan was overwhelmed by feelings of “ire and antipathy…”
“My experience”, he said, “taught me an important lesson: The common humanity of people – not the power of governments – is the only real protector of human rights.”
Addendum 7: -
Jan on the eve of his 22-day journey across German-occupied Europe to No. 10 Downing Street.
Addendum 8: -
In addition to presenting his harrowing 12-page report to the Allied powers, Jan was also tasked with explaining the organization and functions of the Polish Underground State.
To that end, he utilized this detailed chart illustrating how it was organized, so that he could “best explain its functions to No. 10 [Downing Street] and the White House”.
Addendum 9: -
At the war’s end, in 1945, Jan couldn’t return to his native Poland…
Branded an “enemy of Communism” by the post-war Communist regime, he thus decided to make a new life in the United States.
There, he embarked upon a course of study at George Town University where, soon after earning his PhD, Jan was invited by George Town’s then-President – Edmund Aloysius Walsh – to join his staff as a lecturer.
Assigned to the university’s School of Foreign Service, Jan dedicated nearly four decades of his life to teaching and mentoring there, before retiring as a professor in 1984.
Since honored with this humble statue at Georgetown, the bench Jan is sitting on features a plaque that reads:
"Messenger of the Polish People to Their Government in Exile. Messenger of the Jewish People to the World… A Noble Man Walked Amongst Us and Made Us Better by His Presence."
Addendum 10: -
Jan as a PhD at George Town University.
Addendum 11: -
If Jan hadn’t swapped his lieutenant’s uniform for that of a private’s, he would have been executed here, in the forests of Katyń.
By the time Soviet troops seized control of Eastern Poland, in October 1939, they’d captured no less than 450,000 Poles.
Of those 450,000, tens of thousands belonged to the Polish Officer Corps, whom, in the eyes of Josef Stalin, posed a threat to his Communist regime...
Thus, in order to “eliminate the threat”, the Georgian “Man of Steel” authorized his NKVD to “liquidate” the Corps, along with other “counter-revolutionary elements”, captured during the Polish campaign.
For nearly three years, Stalin maintained that the more than 20,000 Poles he had killed in and around Katyn had been “granted amnesty”…
Indeed, it wasn’t until early 1943 that the truth was revealed when, following reports of “mass graves in the forest of Goat Hill near Katyń”, they were finally discovered by Generalmajor Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff – an intelligence officer of the German Wehrmacht made famous by his audacious attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
Addendum 12: -
Jan as a newly commissioned officer of the Polish Army.
Assigned to the 5th Regiment of Mounted Artillery of the Kraków Cavalry Brigade, Jan and the 5th were tasked with defending the medieval town of Oświęcim.
Better known by its German name of Auschwitz, Jan and his comrades did their utmost to hold their positions in the town, before being forced into the fierce, two-week fighting withdrawal that culminated in Tarnopol.
From there, they hoped to cross the border into Hungary, where they intended to join the Polish Armed Forces in exile.
Unbeknown to them, however, Tarnopol had already fallen to Stalin’s invading Red Army, whose numerical superiority, Jan and his compatriots stood no chance of countering.
Addendum 13: -
Jan’s comrades of the Kraków Cavalry Brigade on maneuvers in 1937.
Created in early April of that year, almost all of the Brigade was destroyed during the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski.
Fought between September 17th to September 26th, 1939, the battle culminated in a German victory when the brigade was ordered to withdraw by Major General Stefan Dąb-Biernacki.
When he himself withdrew, and later escaped to France through Hungary, Major General Dąb-Biernacki was arrested on the orders of the Polish Prime Minister-in-Exile – General Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski.
Then put on trial for “breaking military discipline, and attempting to cause ferment in the ranks”, Dąb-Biernacki was ultimately sentenced to two years in prison, and demoted to the rank of private.
Addendum 14: -
Prior to joining the Polish Army, Jan studied for and graduated with a degree in Law and Diplomacy.
Utilizing his degree to enter Poland’s Foreign Ministry, he began his career there as an apprentice diplomat.
Seen here during his apprenticeship, Jan later expressed that his diplomatic service was “one of the reasons that motivated” him “to do something” for Poland’s beleaguered Jewish citizenry...
Indeed, citing his “moral failure” to use his position within the Ministry to condemn Poland’s pre-war anti-Semitic laws and decrees, Jan said that he viewed his endeavor “to help the Jews” during the Holocaust as “a chance to repent for complacency".
Addendum 15: -
In addition to being honored by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Gentile, the Government of Eretz Israel made Jan an honorary citizen of the Jewish State.
Seen here in Jerusalem, shortly after his citizenship ceremony, Jan expressed his gratitude by saying:
“Now I, Jan Karski – by birth Kozielewski – a Pole, an American, a Catholic, have also become an Israelite ! Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo. This is the proudest and most meaningful day in my life, for though the honorary citizenship of Israel, I have reached the spiritual source of my Christian faith."
Addendum 16: -
Jan with his beloved wife, Pola Nirenska.
Born into an observant Jewish family, on July 28th, 1910, in Warsaw, Pola left the city in 1929 for Dresden, Germany, where, having won a coveted place at the esteemed Wigman School of Music and Dance, she commenced her three years of study.
Upon graduating with First Class Honors, she struck out on her own, dancing, teaching, and choreographing in Poland, Austria, and Italy.
There, the outbreak of war in September 1939 forced her to flee to Great Britain, where she soon became a “sweetheart”, entertaining airmen, sailors, and soldiers of the British Armed Forces.
At the war’s end, in 1945, Pola learned that, although, sadly, over 75 members of her family had been murdered by the Nazis, both her parents and her brother survived.
Later emigrating to the United States, it was there, that she met, fell in love with, and married Jan.
Together, they enjoyed nearly three decades of marriage, before, tragically, Pola took her own life, aged 81, by leaping from the 11th-floor balcony of the home they shared in the town of Bethesda, Maryland.