The First Annual Jan Karski Celebration was held at the
Consulate of Poland in New York on April 24th.
In the midst of World
War II, Jan Karski worked as a courier, entering the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi
Izbica transit camp, where he saw first-hand the atrocities occurring under
Nazi occupation.
He was dispatched by the Polish Underground
to inform the West about the atrocities being committed by the Nazis in
occupied Poland – including the ongoing slaughter of the entire Jewish
population and to seek their intervention.
Karski traveled to London to meet with the Polish government-in-exile
and with British government officials. He subsequently traveled to the United
States and met with President Roosevelt.
His eyewitness account of the Holocaust was not taken seriously.
Karski published the book Story of a Secret State; earned a Ph.D
at Georgetown University, and became a professor at Georgetown's School of
Foreign Service - educating generations of students about the dangers of
staying silent in the face of tyranny and danger. Born in 1914, Karski became a
U.S. citizen in 1954 and died in 2000
The program began with a film clip of President Barack Obama’s announcement at the US Memorial Holocaust Museum in
Washington that the late Dr. Karski will posthumously be awarded America’s highest honor – the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Medal is the Nation's highest civilian
honor, presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious
contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to
world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.
"We must tell our children about how
this evil was allowed to happen-because so many people succumbed to their
darkest instincts; because so many others stood silent,” said President
Obama. “But let us also tell our
children about the Righteous Among the Nations. Among them was Jan Karski-a
young Polish Catholic – who witnessed Jews being put on cattle cars, who saw
the killings, and who told the truth, all the way to President Roosevelt
himself.”
Remarks were made by Wanda Urbanska of West Virginia, the Campaign director of The Jan
Karski Centennial Campaign – an initiative of the Polish History Museum in
Warsaw. “This highest of civilian honors
in our great land validates the principles that Jan Karski stood for: tolerance
and understanding among people of all faiths and the courage to speak the truth
in the worst of times,” said Urbanska.
Through a very thick Polish accent, with
eyes glued to the text, Marcin Lapiński delivered an impassioned dramatic
reading from Karski’s memoir Story of a
Secret State.
During the
event, Consul General Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka
awarded Simon Bergson of the Auschwitz Jewish Center
Foundation with the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of
Poland and was herself distinguished with the first ever Jan Karski Spirit Award.
Presented by David Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish
Committee, the award embodies the nature of Karski – a person with a
combination of “moral, physical, intellectual and courage” traits and one who
leads from the “head, heart, soul and spine.”
It was announced
that 1944 bestseller and “Book of the Month” classic - Story of a Secret State was in the process of being reprinted in a
new release for a new generation. One of the initiatives of the Centennial
Campaign was to have the book made as required reading in US schools.
