The Man Who Tried to Warn the World

Jan Karski - The Courier of Conscience

Before the war, Jan Karski was a quiet, brilliant student from Poland. He studied law and diplomacy and dreamed of a future in foreign service. He wasn’t a soldier or a politician - just a young man who loved his country and believed in human dignity.

Then came the Nazi invasion. Karski joined the Polish underground and became a courier. What made him exceptional was not his training - it was his choice. When asked to witness the Nazi atrocities firsthand, he didn’t hesitate. He disguised himself and entered the Warsaw Ghetto and a transit camp, risking capture, torture, and death. And then, dressed as an Estonian guard, he was smuggled into a concentration camp to watch Jews being herded to their deaths.

Then he did something even braver: he tried to tell the world. He smuggled himself across enemy lines and delivered firsthand testimony of the Holocaust to Allied leaders. He met with British and American leaders, including President Roosevelt. But the truth was too inconvenient - too horrific. Most didn’t believe him.

Karski’s warnings were largely ignored. He bore the crushing weight of knowledge - and the silence of the world. His story is a searing reminder of how power, denial, and indifference can stifle truth. In today’s climate of information warfare, where atrocities are live-streamed and still denied, his courage feels tragically relevant.

In a world flooded with information yet plagued by disbelief, where whistleblowers and truth-tellers are often silenced or smeared, Karski’s story reminds us: You don’t need power to make a difference - you need courage.

“The Lord assigned me a role to inform the world…but it did not want to hear.”

If you’re interested in learning more and Jan Karski and his experiences, here are some recommended books:

• Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World, by Jan Karski

• The Great Powers and Poland 1919-1945: From Versailles to Yalta, by Jan Karski

• Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski, by Clark Young and Derek Goldman

• Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust, by E. Thomas Wood

Ⓒ August 2025. Beki Lantos. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.