Karski's Reports
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Karski's reports were a series of reports attributed to
Jan Karski Jan Karski (born Jan Kozielewski, 24 June 1914 – 13 July 2000) was a Polish soldier, Polish resistance movement in World War II, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II. He is known for having acted as a courier in 1940–1943 to ...
, an investigator working for the
Polish government-in-exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
during World War II, describing the situation in
occupied Poland ' (Norwegian language, Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV 2 (Norway), TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. ...
. They were some of the first documents on
the Holocaust in Poland The Holocaust saw the ghettoization, robbery, deportation and mass murder of Jews, alongside other groups under Nazi racial theories, similar racial pretexts in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland by the Nazi Germany. Over th ...
received by the Polish government in exile, and, through it, by the Western
Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...
. For the 1942 report attributed to him, considered a cornerstone of his legacy, the attribution to Karski is unconfirmed. No reliable sources exist for the actual content of the information Karski carried with him to the West, and the information contained in the official reports may actually have come from other couriers.


Reports

Karski, who fought as a non-commissioned officer during the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and subsequently escaped from a prisoner-of-war transport, wrote his first report on the situation in Poland in late 1939. Subsequently, he escaped from Poland to France, where he joined the recreated Polish Army, and after coming to the attention of the Polish government-in-exile due to qualities like his
photographic memory Eidetic memory ( ), also known as photographic memory and total recall, is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision—at least for a brief period of time—after seeing it only onceThe terms ''eidetic memory'' and ''photogr ...
, he became a courier and an investigator, travelling several times between occupied Poland and France (later, the United Kingdom). His reports contained information about various aspects of the situation in occupied Poland, including topics such as the extent of Polish resistance, and on numerous German war crimes and atrocities, including the ongoing
Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
, at that point mostly unknown in the West. His first two reports delivered to the government in exile in 1940 were entitled "Selected political and ideological issues in Poland" and "The Jewish situation". Andrzej Żbikowski
Jan Karski – bohater polskiego podziemia
, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringebluma w WarszawieStudium Europy Wschodniej, Uniwersytet Warszawski
Joshua D. Zimmerman Joshua D. Zimmerman (born 1966) holds the Eli and Diana Zborowski Professorial Chair in Holocaust Studies and East European Jewish History at Yeshiva University. He is the author or editor of several works about the Holocaust, including ''Contes ...
called his work the "
Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...
's first comprehensive report on the situation of Polish Jews". and David Engel referred to it as "the first comprehensive discussion of Jewish matters in occupied Poland to have reached the olishgovernment n exile His first report, compiled in France in 1940, was commissioned by a Polish leader
Stanisław Kot Stanisław Kot (22 October 188526 December 1975) was a Polish historian and politician. A native of the Austrian partition of Poland, early in life he was attracted to the cause of Polish independence. As a professor of the Jagiellonian Unive ...
, who asked Karski to write up his observations on several issues, among them, implicitly, the situation of the Polish Jews. Karski wrote several more reports in the following years. His fourth report was also focused on the plight of the Jews. For the 1942 report attributed to him, considered a cornerstone of his legacy, the attribution to Karski is unconfirmed. No reliable sources exist for the actual content of the information Karski carried with him to the West, and the information contained in the official reports may actually have come from other couriers.


Reception and significance

In 1942 Karski visited London, where he met with Polish and British officials, and other prominent people. A year later he visited the United States. Although information regarding the Holocaust constituted only a small part of the information he collected and delivered, it became one of the most influential parts of his reports. The Polish government used Karski's reports to appeal to the Western Allies to interfere with the German atrocities against the Polish Jews, though by 1943 the appeals had not produced any results, as most Western leaders were not interested in or did not believe such revelations, and the Polish government officials themselves saw Jewish public opinion as unfavorable towards the Polish state. The Western Allies' response was indeed lackluster. Nechma Tec wrote that "Karski's reports about the Jewish plight and the messages from the Jewish leaders that inevitably pleaded for help fell on deaf ears". Until the revelations late in the war, many Western politicians, and even some Jewish leaders, remained skeptical of Karski's reports, which were called "atrocity propaganda". Similarly, most newspapers treated Karski's revelations as "a minor story". In 2010
Claude Lanzmann Claude Lanzmann (; 27 November 1925 – 5 July 2018) was a French filmmaker, best known for the Holocaust documentary film ''Shoah'' (1985), which consists of nine and a half hours of oral testimony from Holocaust survivors, without historical f ...
, who interviewed Karski in 1978 and in 1985 used part of that interview in his film ''
Shoah The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
'', released a documentary focused on Karski, titled '' The Karski Report'' .


See also

* Raczyński's Note *
Witold's Report Witold's Report, also known as Pilecki's Report, is a report about the Auschwitz concentration camp written in 1943 by Witold Pilecki, a Polish military officer and member of the Polish resistance. Pilecki volunteered in 1940 to be imprisoned in ...
* The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland


Further reading

*


References

{{reflist


External links


Karski's raports
scanned, on the pages of the Museum of Polish History
Report on the attacks on the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw
scanned and transcript on "The National Archives (UK)" The Holocaust in Poland Holocaust historical documents Government reports 1940 in Poland 1940 documents Works about Poland in World War II