Jan Karski

Jan Karski (born Jan Kozielewski; 1914 – 2000) was a Polish resistance fighter, diplomat, and professor. Working as a courier for the Polish underground state (Armia Krajowa), Karski crossed enemy lines across occupied Europe with phenomenal memory, memorizing microfilmed documents and operational reports for the government-in-exile.

In late 1942, to convince the Western Allies of the reality of the Holocaust, Karski was smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto twice by Jewish underground leaders and infiltrated the Izbica sorting camp disguised as an Estonian guard, witnessing cattle cars packed with suffocating victims being sent to Belzec. In 1943, Karski traveled to London and Washington, personally briefing British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, pleading for military intervention and railway bombings to halt the death camps. After the war, he became a beloved professor of international relations at Georgetown University.