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If one of James Bond’s legendary missions instead had stakes that actually mattered—like, say, bringing genocide to light—his stories might have held a candle to those of Poland’s hero, Jan Karski. A multi-lingual diplomat-turned-courier, Karski risked life and limb to bring his eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to the world at large.
A comprehensive new exhibition at the Pius XII Memorial Library at Saint Louis University tells the story of Karski’s life and of his missions into Hitler’s death camps and across hostile territory to bring word of the horrors to a still-skeptical West.
The exhibition, The World Knew: Jan Karski’s Mission for Humanity opens Sept. 24, with remarks from members of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation and the St. Louis Polish community. It features 22 panels that expound on his life story, drawing from history and his 1944 memoir, Story of a Secret State.
Karski, a Catholic diplomat, accepted a mission from the Polish Underground, a faction in Poland remaining loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile in London. The mission was beyond crucial, getting word of the Holocaust across Hitler’s empire to London, and then to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington.
The mission began in July, 1942. He infiltrated the Warsaw Ghetto twice, as well as the Izbica Lubelska transit camp. He faced brutal hardships, including crossing the Tatra Mountains on foot and getting betrayed to the Gestapo, who tortured him. He either engineered his own escapes or worked with the Polish government in exile.
Finally, by the end of November, he arrived in London, briefing British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and traveling on to Washington. Most of Poland’s Jews had already been exterminated by the time Karski’s message was heard.
Chris Smentkowski is director of arts at St. Louis Polonia, a Polish cultural heritage organization, and a library associate at Pius XII Memorial Library. He worked alongside an impressive team of folks representing the Polish government, the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center in St. Louis, the Polish community in St. Louis, and The Saint Louis University Center for Intercultural Studies to bring the traveling exhibition to St. Louis.
“Karski’s message applies, not just to the Holocaust but to all these issues of genocide and oppressed peoples everywhere,” Smentkowski says. “Crimea, Syria, here at home with the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Karski spent the last 40 years of his life teaching at Georgetown, and it was a calling for him there to ensure that people never forget the Holocaust. He referred to the Free World’s inaction as the “second original sin.”
“The plight of the Jewish people became such a matter to him that he came to really understand Jewish people and Jewish culture,” Smentkowski says. “Nothing else in human history compares to it.”
He says that Karski’s courage and persistence, continuing to fight even when most Polish Jews were already lost, stands out as Karski’s triumph and applies to situations in today’s world.
Smentkowski, himself a painter and ceramics artist, says the exhibition, designed by Syfon Studio in Warsaw, stands up to a high aesthetic bar.
“It looks fantastic. The prints are displayed beautifully,” he says. “It tells the story swiftly—it’s not something you need to spend an hour and a half with.”
He asked Polish artist Ryszard Kaja to create a poster for the exhibition, and the image he came up with is haunting and stirring.
On October 1, in support of the exhibition, Saint Louis University School of Law will hold an event to examine Karski’s legacy and the principles that drove him. Remembrance, Responsibility and Reflection: the Moral Courage of Jan Karski includes a special screening of the new film Karski and the Lords of Humanity with director Slawomir Grunberg on hand. It begins at 2 p.m. in the John K. Pruellage Courtroom at the SLU Law building at 100 North Tucker. If you aren't able to catch the exhibit at Saint Louis University, note that Lindenwood University will hots the exhibit from November 1–15; more details on that here.
