The Messenger

April 15, 2012
Jan Karski, the man who tried to stop the Holocaust, is recognized by Yad Vashem for his extraordinary efforts to bring to light Hitler's murderous campaign against European Jewry in his native Poland during WWII. This work consists of three sections: an analysis of Karski's agonizing testimony in the film Shoah, a moving interpretation of his 1944 book Story of a Secret State, and an imaginative documentation of his futile efforts to move the Allies to come to the aid of Poland and the millions being murdered there. Karski was taken prisoner by the Russians soon after the German invasion in 1939 and narrowly avoided death at Katyn. He escaped by taking part in a prisoner transfer to Germany, where he was tortured by the Nazis. He escaped and made his way back to Warsaw, where he joined the Resistance, risking his life to witness the horror of the ghetto and a concentration camp from inside. As a member of the underground, he became the messenger who took eyewitness accounts to England and the United States, where he was received with disbelief and indifference. This imaginative rendering of the facts demonstrates why fiction is often the most effective way to tell the truth. The book is particularly timely as the Jan Karski U.S. Centennial Campaign attempts to win for him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Honor as humanity's hero. A compelling paean to a courageous human being who understood that evil has no reason. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)