fbpx
[additional-authors]
November 10, 2015

Hollywood and our culture are fascinated by “super heroes,” people who have “super” powers and do extraordinary deeds—rescuing individuals in danger, calling attention to injustice and pursuing fairness.

In the real world there are rare “super” heroes who perform extraordinary deeds, but they are not possessed of “super powers”—-they have the same capacities as ordinary mortals, they just know how to act and how to pursue the right course—despite the dangers.

Many years ago, I had the opportunity during my career at the Anti-Defamation League to meet a real life “super” hero, Jan Karski. His heroic life is now the subject of a documentary that is the Polish entry in the Academy Awards for best documentary.

The film will be screened this coming week in Pasadena.

Jan Karski is one of the most amazing heroes of the twentieth century—a member of the Polish underground during World War II who was a courier between the Polish government in exile (first in Paris and then London) and Poland under the Nazi occupation. Having been captured by the Soviets (as a Polish army officer) when Poland was divided in 1939 then captured and tortured by the Nazis— he was by the age of 26 a veteran of the two major totalitarianisms that haunted the century.

But his experiences did not deter him from doing what he thought was right.Rather than retreat from the battle he determined to change history.

Because of his photographic memory he was an especially valued courier. In October, 1942 he was asked to assess the plight of the Jews in Poland and personally report his findings in London. To be as accurate as possible,

Karski, who was Catholic, was smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, as the Nazis were deporting hundreds of thousands of Warsaw's Jews to the gas chambers of Treblinka. Walking through the ghetto, he saw corpses piled in the gutter, emaciated children clothed in rags, and dazed men and women slumped against decrepit buildings.

When gunfire suddenly erupted, Karski’s comrades hurried him into a nearby apartment. He watched as two uniformed teenagers with pistols came down the street. “They are here for the ‘Jew hunt,’” Karski was told. Hitler Youth members would amuse themselves by venturing into the Jewish part of the city and shooting people at random.

Days later, Karski would travel to Izbica, in southern Poland, where he witnessed Jews being delivered to a sorting station where they were robbed of their few valuables, stripped and then sent to an extermination camp.

Karski smuggled himself across occupied Europe (he had been caught and tortured on earlier courier missions but had miraculously escaped) to Spain and then to London to report on what he had seen.

He met with Foreign Minister Anthony Eden and sought a meeting with Winston Churchill (which was not granted). He traveled to Washington where he met with Jewish leaders, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter and ultimately, President Roosevelt.

He sought to impress upon the leaders the plight of the Jews of Europe,

This was not the first time FDR heard about the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. For nearly a year, detailed reports about the killings had been reaching the White House. In fact, when American Jewish leaders had their very first meeting with the president on this subject, in December 1942, FDR told them he was already “well acquainted” with the massacres they described. But the meeting with Karski was the first time President Roosevelt encountered an actual eyewitness to the killings. [Emphasis added]

Despite Karski’s harrowing first-person account of the atrocities, the president was not moved. FDR was, as Karski politely described it, 'rather noncommittal.'

Roosevelt viewed the suffering of the Jews as just another unfortunate aspect of what civilians suffer in every war. He did not believe it was justified for the U.S. to use any resources to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Nor did he want to have to deal with large numbers of rescued Jewish refugees, clamoring to be admitted to the United States.

After his meetings, in 1944, Karski wrote, Story of a Secret State, with a long chapter on the Holocaust in Poland. Although Karski felt that he had failed in wartime mission to awaken the world to action, his actions were brave, profound and unique.

Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, awarded its highest honor, Righteous Among the Nations, to Karski noting that, “he had incurred enormous risk in penetrating into the Warsaw ghetto and a camp, and then committed himself wholly to the case of rescuing the Jews.” He was made an honorary citizen of Israel in 1994. In 2012, President Obama posthumously awarded Karski the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

A documentary on the life of Jan Karski, Karski and the Lords of Humanity, will be shown starting Friday at the Laemmle Pasadena for one week (November 13-19). The film was directed by Emmy award winner Slawomir Grunberg who will talk at the 5:30 and 7:40 screenings on Friday and Saturday nights (November 13 and 14).

He was an extraordinarily brave and modest “super” hero whose actions can help us all reset our moral compass and figure out what is really important in life.

You can see a preview of the movie

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Difficult Choices

Jews have always believed in the importance of higher education. Today, with the rise in antisemitism across many college campuses, Jewish high school seniors are facing difficult choices.

All Aboard the Lifeboat

These are excruciating times for Israel, and for the Jewish people.  It is so tempting to succumb to despair. That is why we must keep our eyes open and revel in any blessing we can find.  

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.