Jan Karski Tribute at Georgetown University with Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former U.S. National Security Adviser Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski

WASHINGTON – Georgetown University Press is releasing a new edition of Jan Karski’s Story of a Secret State, a poignant World War II memoir that documents the role of Poland’s Resistance Movement – the largest underground movement in occupied Europe – and that also contains one of the first accounts of the systematic slaughter of Jews by German Nazis. 

A tribute to mark the occasion and pay honor to the author, his courage and testimony, was held on March 18, 2013 at Georgetown University. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former U.S. National Security Adviser Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski were participating in a panel discussion along with Poland’s Ambassador to the U.S. Ryszard Schnepf and Rabbi Harold S. White, who served as Senior Jewish Chaplain at Georgetown University while Jan Karski taught there. The event was moderated by Dean Carol Lancaster of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

The new edition of Story of a Secret State includes a foreword by Secretary Albright and an afterword by Dr. Brzezinski. 

Jan Karski was twice smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II, and also entered Belzec transit camp in disguise to witness firsthand the horrors of the Holocaust. He escaped war-torn Poland to bring his eyewitness accounts to the West. 

Story of a Secret State – My Report to the World was first published in 1944 and based on Jan Karski’s wartime activities. It was an instant bestseller. The memoirs describe his personal story, but the book is also very much a window into the fate of the Polish nation during the war.  

“Being the first active member of the Polish Underground in the fortunate position to publish some aspects of its story, I hope that it will encourage others to relate their experiences and that out of such narratives the free people all over the world will be able to form an objective opinion as to how the Polish people reacted during the years of German conquest,” Karski wrote in the original, 1944 preface to the book.                                                                                                               

Jan Karski did not return to Poland after the war’s end. He served as a distinguished professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University for 40 years before his death in 2000. 

In 1982, Jan Karski was named Righteous Among the Nations. In 2012, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Jan Karski the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

An exhibit on the life of Jan Karski, prepared by the Jan Karski Institute, will be on display during the March 18 event (Intercultural Center Galleria, until March 20). 

Learn More about Jan Karski’s book

Georgetown University Press: Story of a Secret State