Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust

Jan Karski's brother, a police official, recruited him into the Polish underground, where he became a courier. Captured by the Gestapo, Karski escaped to bear witness of Nazi atrocities in the Warsaw Ghetto and elsewhere. Because written reports of the Germans' systematic attempt to destroy Polish Jewry were ignored in London and Washington, D.C., Karski went to both capitals, where he met Allied leaders. But his testimony was not taken seriously. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, for example, said he simply didn't believe Karski. Karski became an American citizen after the war and pursued an academic career (he is now professor emeritus at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service). In 1982 he was made an honorary citizen of Israel and recognized as one of the Righteous Among Nations. His engrossing biography is valuable, for it tempers the widespread contention that Gentile Poland was indifferent to the plight of the Jews. Wood is a Tennessee journalist, Jankowski a Polish journalist. (Oct.)