Customer Reviews

Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust

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Jan Karski, who died in July 2000, was a larger than life hero from World War II, who tried to smuggle out information from Nazi occupied Poland to warn the rest of the world about the horrors happening to the Jewish population of his country. He was captured by the Nazis, tortured, escaped, eventually met with President Roosevelt, and truly lived an unbelievably brave and inspiring life. The story is better than any fictional thriller or Hollywood movie. You have to keep reminding yourself that what you are reading is true. It keeps your attention throughout the book, though the last couple of chapters are less exciting naturally than the rest, once the war is over. One has to wonder if there are people like Jan Karski living today...

I first heard about Jan Karski when I read his obituary in the New York Times a few years back. After reading the obituary, I thought that this guy led an exciting and profound life, and that his life story would make a great book and/or movie (Steven Speilberg, are you listening?). That's why I'm glad I found this book.

Jan Karski was a young diplomat in Poland when the Germans invaded in 1939. Before the invasion, he seemed to be more interested in the political power struggles of the day rather than the moral and ethical quandaries of war. That soon changed after he was taken prisoner and sent to both Soviet and Nazi prison camps. He spent the war years secretly delivering messages around Europe for the Polish underground, and word of his exploits soon spread among the Allies. He was later sent to Britian and later, the United States, where he became a citizen and lived out the rest of his life.

His near-famous quest to relay the horrors of the Holocaust to the skeptical Allies is only one facet of this individual's life. The authors excelled at opening my eyes to the political infighting among various factions of the Polish resistance (politics doesn't die in wartime, it just goes underground, I learned), and they seemed to paint Karski as an individual who became more interested in working for human freedom and dignity than for carving a political legacy for himself in a postwar Poland.

Karski's days in Britain got a bit dry in the book; his wartime adventures in occupied Europe and his postwar days at Georgetown University (as the world began to recognize his contributions) held my attention the most.

As a bonus, a guide to the many characters Karski dealt with in his life is included in the appendix...a handly tool for keeping track of who's who in this book.

Thomas Wood, an American journalist, and Stanislav Jankowski, a Polish historian, have written this biography of Jan Karski, who was chosen by the Polish resistance to escape from Poland and go tell the Allies that the Germans were committing a genocide against Poland's Jews.

Karski, a universally respected diplomat, was infiltrated into Warsaw's Ghetto and into a German concentration camp to witness the harrowing persecution in progress and thus be able to swear to the Allied leaders he warned that his testimony was based on his own eyes' witness. During World War One the British had concocted propaganda falsely accusing the Germans of incredible and senseless brutality in Belgium, such as throwing infants into the air to catch them on bayonets, not least in order to draw the United States into the war. Tragically, many of the leaders Karski met, including FDR, Justice Felix Frankfurter, and Rabbi Stephen Wise found Karski's accounts to be so disturbing and unfathomable that they couldn't believe them, believing instead that the Polish government in exile was concocting atrocity propaganda of its own to once again embroil America in Europe's fighting.

Karski also served as a courier in the Polish resistance, worked for the Polish government in exile in various capacities, taught at Georgetown University, and more. A fascinating man, with a fascinating and righteous life, any account of his life is worth reading.

And yet, more than a few improvements could be made to this book. At a scant 250 pages of text, excluding glossaries, indexes and more, it's incredibly short for a life as rich as Karski's. Enough mention is made of factions in Polish politics for the reader to understand that factions existed, but without any introduction to the history, ideology, or sociology of the factions, reading the pages devoted to Polish politics is as intellectually stimulating as peering into a kaleidoscope while drunk. A history of Poland, its politics, and of Polish antisemitism and to a lesser extent of Poland's philosemitism would have proven invaluable to the lay reader. Bereft of such an introduction, a reader not already versed in Polish politics gains little understanding of the intricacies and intrigues Karski had to master. A 500 page or even 750 page text would have been vastly more enlightening.

Long after reading this book, I realize that it has another big benefit to offer; for those of us who are or were caught in a situation where we knew that wrongdoing was hurting other people, and found that other people wouldn't believe or join us, this book offers much consolation. Sooner or later things do generally work out; it is the good that we do that we can be proud of.

Jan Karski's life easily deserves 5 stars; the biographers of this book deserve about two stars for their efforts. Averaging the two, I've given the book 4 stars.

This biography is the definitive book in English about the Polish Underground hero of World War II Jan Karski. Carefully researched and documented, it gives context and additional details that weren't included in Karski's famous book "Story of a Secret State." I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in World War II history, heroic figures, and inspiring people worth reading about.

Great transaction! The book was in excellent condition, as if it had not been read before. I have no complaints about the book or its condition.