Jan Karski - Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World

We must tell our children about how this evil was allowed to happenbecause so many people succumbed to their darkest instincts; because so many others stood silent. But let us also tell our children about the Righteous among the Nations. Among them was Jan Karskia young Polish Catholicwho witnessed Jews being put on cattle cars, who saw the killings, and who told the truth, all the way to President Roosevelt himself.

President Barack Obama, announcing Jan Karskis posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom

I believe that great heroes like Jan Karski never really die. Jan Karski will live on in books, in his students, in the memory of his larger-than-life deeds.

President of Poland Lech Wasa

Jan Karski is well known as the courier from Poland who exposed the Holocaust, but his work in the service of the underground Polish state, which flourished under the noses of the Nazis, equally deserves to find the limelight. Unlike its counterparts in other countries, the Polish Resistance Movement did not confine itself to military activities; it created a huge network of clandestine organizations that functioned in the fields of culture, education, propaganda, justice, and economics, and that undermined the social control of the German forces of occupation. Karskis book on this subject is a classic, providing an unmatched account of the wartime realities in a country that lay at the epicenter of the conflict.

Norman Davies, St. Antonys College, Oxford; Jagiellonian University, Krakow

The notion that one person can make a difference is personified by Jan Karski, who I was privileged to have as my professorand guiding lightat Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Karskis Story of a Secret State offers a glimpse into a time and place ruled by Nazi terror: Poland in the early 1940s. Karski risked his life to bear witness to Nazi atrocities against Jews, Catholics, and Polish dissidents. In disguise, he snuck into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Nazi transfer camp, then reported his terrifying observations directly to British leaders and President Franklin Roosevelt, among the first reports of the Holocaust to the civilized world. Georgetowns edition of Story of a Secret State gives a new generation of readers the portrait of a genuine hero who truly made a difference.

Pat Quinn, Governor of Illinois; Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1971

Jan Karskis brave account of the Nazis horrific crimes and one mans heroic resistance strikes our collective conscience as strongly today as when he first published it over six decades ago. Today, millions around the world continue to thank and honor him for exposing the evil that was perpetuated throughout concentration camps. When President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Jan Karski the Medal of Freedom, he recognized that Karskis story is one of courage as much as compassion. This book is a stirring reminder that our world depends on both.

Rahm Emanuel, Mayor, City of Chicago

Briskly paced, this is a gripping and immediate account of Nazi brutality from a brave leader of the resistance.

Publishers Weekly ( Starred review)

A disturbing, unique, invaluable record of Polands suffering and heroism during World War II.

Kirkus Reviews ( Starred review)

His wartime saga as officer, as Soviet prisoner, as escapee, in the hands of the Gestapo, and as a Polish Underground activist and courier, is beyond remarkable. In a world today where words such as courage and heroism have been so overusedapplied freely from sports to entertainment to politics as to be rendered practically meaninglessJan Karski was the rare human being who embodied both.

David Harris, Huffington Post

Stands in the absolute first rank of books about the resistance in World War II. If you wish to read about a man more courageous and honorable than Jan Karski, I would have no idea who to recommend.

Alan Furst, author of The Polish Officer

Jan Karski: a brave man? Better: a just man.

Elie Wiesel

Professor Karski was a man of uncommon courage, integrity, intelligence, and love. May his great soul rest in peace.

William E. Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore

Story of a Secret State is a classic of Holocaust literature, an extraordinary testament to mans inhumanity to man, and the even more remarkable courage required to resist it.

Ben MacIntyre, author of Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies

To have utterly vital information but to be ignored or disbelieved must be almost as terrible as to be interrogated for information one doesnt possess. For that was the fate of Jan Karski, hero of the Polish Underground resistance, whose Second World War memoir this is. It might read like the screenplay for an incredibly exciting war movie, but it is all true.

Andrew Roberts, historian and author of The Storm of War

Karskis account of his missions is an electrifying tale of false identities, near captures, spies and secret film capsules. In military terms, Karskis mission was a failure and the Allies did not change their strategy to stop the Holocaust. Yet, in human terms, Karskis account is invaluable. I would like nothing better than to purge my mind of these memories, he wrote in 1944, but he carried them to his grave.

Frank Trentmann, Sunday Express (London)

His is not a story of conventional heroism. It is a morally grave resistance in which any attack or escape is likely to cause the deaths of comrades or civilians. Karski provides an astonishing insight into the operation of the secret Polish state. His story deserves not just revival but reflection. Karskis electrifying words still speak only too eloquently for themselves.

Marek Kohn, Independent (London)

Jan Karskis life story was quite literally incredible. He was the man who first brought news of the Holocaust to the disbelieving ears of the Allies while the Second World War was still raging [his book] is a cracking good read: Karskis adventures are worthy of the wildest spy thriller.

Nigel Jones, The Sunday Telegraph (London)

Story of a Secret State is a Boys Own tale of disguise, hidden microfilms, and the obligatory cyanide pill. In one escape Karski leaps from a moving prison train; in another he swaps uniforms with a fellow inmate; in a third he is sprung from the Gestapos clutches by Underground fighters whose orders were to save him or to kill him. This eyewitness testimony from a war that was still raging while Karski was writing is imbued with a passion that subsequent memoirs can rarely match. The stench of war clings to its pages.

Stefan Wagstyl, Financial Times (London)

Karskis exploration of the moral fog in which he and his colleagues operated resembles scenes tantalizingly directed by Hitchcock. Karskis account of the systematic brutality of the Nazi regime is literally chilling.

Peter Conrad, Observer (London)

STORY OF A SECRET STATE