Jan Karski

About the Author

Jan Karski was a Polish resistance fighter and one of the first eyewitnesses to the Holocaust, whose courageous efforts during World War II brought the atrocities of Nazi-occupied Europe to the attention of the Allied world. Born in 1914 in Łódź, Poland, Karski served as a courier for the Polish Underground State, undertaking perilous missions that included infiltrating the Warsaw Ghetto and a transit camp en route to the death camps. His seminal memoir, Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World, published in 1944, vividly recounts these experiences and serves as a haunting testament to human resilience and the moral imperative to bear witness. Later in life, Karski became a professor of international relations at Georgetown University, where he continued to educate generations about the lessons of the war until his death in 2000. His work remains a cornerstone of Holocaust literature, inspiring readers to confront history's darkest chapters.