Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust, Newly Updated (Modern Jewish History) - Softcover

Wood, E. Thomas; Jankowski, Stanisław M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1682832716 ISBN 13: 9781682832714

Publisher: Texas Tech University Press, 2025

Synopsis

A young Polish diplomat turned cavalry officer, Jan Karski joined the Polish Underground movement in 1939. He became a courier for the Underground, crossing enemy lines to serve as a liaison between occupied Poland and the free world.

In 1942, Jewish leaders asked him to carry a desperate message to Allied leaders: the news of Hitler's effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe. To be able to deliver an authentic report, Karski twice toured the Warsaw Ghetto in disguise and later volunteered to be smuggled into a camp that was part of the Nazi murder machine.

Carrying searing tales of inhumanity, Karski set out to alert the world to the emerging Holocaust, meeting with top Allied officials and later President Roosevelt, to deliver his descriptions of genocide. Part spy thriller and part compelling story of moral courage against all odds, Karski is the first definitive account of perhaps the most significant warning of the impending Holocaust to reach the free world.

This new edition also features a conversation with Academy Award Nominee David Strathairn, who played Jan Karski in the play Remember This.

About this title

About the Authors

E. Thomas Wood’s investigative, business, and historical journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other newspapers and magazines. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and holds an M.Phil. degree in European Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Historian Stanisław M. Jankowski (d. 2022) was a leading authority on Poland’s underground movement during the Second World War. He was a graduate of Jagiellonian University in Krakow and the author of more than 20 books. For his historical work related to the Katyn massacre, he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

Edition details

• Publisher: Texas Tech University Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1682832716
• ISBN 13: 9781682832714
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336