Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust (Paperback)

by E. Thomas Wood (Author), Stanislaw M. Jankowski (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Jan Karski's brother, a police official, recruited him into the Polish underground, where he became a courier. Captured by the Gestapo, Karski escaped to bear witness of Nazi atrocities in the Warsaw Ghetto and elsewhere. Because written reports of the Germans' systematic attempt to destroy Polish Jewry were ignored in London and Washington, D.C., Karski went to both capitals, where he met Allied leaders. But his testimony was not taken seriously. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, for example, said he simply didn't believe Karski. Karski became an American citizen after the war and pursued an academic career (he is now professor emeritus at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service). In 1982 he was made an honorary citizen of Israel and recognized as one of the Righteous Among Nations. His engrossing biography is valuable, for it tempers the widespread contention that Gentile Poland was indifferent to the plight of the Jews. Wood is a Tennessee journalist, Jankowski a Polish journalist.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The Washington Post
"Told with the urgency of a spy thriller." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (February 2, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471145734
• ISBN-13: 978-0471145738
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,002,865 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An inspiring and exciting story, August 18, 2000

By	Robert Berkman (Falmouth, MA USA) - See all my reviews

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...

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An amazing, inspiring life, and an exciting read as well, August 21, 2002

By	Jeffrey Jotz "You'll know him when you find him" (Rahway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a biography of an exceptionally heroic and fascinating man, October 30, 2007

By	lector avidus (USA) - See all my reviews

Thomas Wood, an American journalist, and Stanislav Jankowski, a Polish historian, have written this biography of Jan Karski, who was tapped 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 aver to the Allied leaders he warned that his testimony was based on his own eyes' witness. Sadly, during World War One the British had propagated propaganda falsely accusing the Germans of all sorts of incredible and senseless brutality in Belgium, not least in order to draw the United States into the war. Many of the leaders Karski met, including FDR, Justice Felix Frankfurter, and Rabbi Stephen Wise deemed Karski's accounts to be so disturbing and unfathomable that they were unable to believe them, choosing to believe that the Polish government in exile had chosen to propagate atrocity propaganda of its own against the Germans.

Karski also served as a courier in the Polish resistance, worked for the Polish resistance and government in exile in various capacities, taught at Georgetown University, and more. Obviously 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 there is no introduction to the history, ideology or sociology of the various factions, which makes reading the pages devoted to Polish politics seem as intellectually stimulating as peering into a kaleidoscope. 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 cames away from the book with little understanding of the intricacies and intrigues that Karski had to master. A 500 page or even 750 page text would have been vastly more enlightening.

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.