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

Karski, Jan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1589019830 ISBN 13: 9781589019836

Publisher: Georgetown University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Jan Karski's Story of a Secret State stands as one of the most poignant and inspiring memoirs of World War II and the Holocaust. With elements of a spy thriller, documenting his experiences in the Polish Underground, and as one of the first accounts of the systematic slaughter of the Jews by the German Nazis, this volume is a remarkable testimony of one man's courage and a nation's struggle for resistance against overwhelming oppression. Karski was a brilliant young diplomat when war broke out in 1939 with Hitler's invasion of Poland. Taken prisoner by the Soviet Red Army, which had simultaneously invaded from the East, Karski narrowly escaped the subsequent Katyn Forest Massacre. He became a member of the Polish Underground, the most significant resistance movement in occupied Europe, acting as a liaison and courier between the Underground and the Polish government-in-exile. He was twice smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto, and entered the Nazi's Izbica transit camp disguised as a guard, witnessing first-hand the horrors of the Holocaust. Karski's courage and testimony, conveyed in a breathtaking manner in Story of a Secret State, offer the narrative of one of the world's greatest eyewitnesses and an inspiration for all of humanity, emboldening each of us to rise to the challenge of standing up against evil and for human rights. This definitive edition -- which includes a foreword by Madeleine Albright, a biographical essay by Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an afterword by Zbigniew Brzezinski, previously unpublished photos, notes, further reading, and a glossary -- is an apt legacy for this hero of conscience during the most fraught and fragile moment in modern history.

About this title

Review:

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 honourable than Jan Karski, I would have no idea who to recommend.

--Alan Furst, author of The Polish Officer

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 overused--applied freely from sports to entertainment to politics as to be rendered practically meaningless--Jan Karski was the rare human being who embodied both.

--David Harris, Huffington Post

Those who fear they have been desensitized by the sheer volume of information chronicling Nazi brutality in occupied Europe must read this memoir. . . . This is an exciting but often painful recounting of one man's witness to terror and tragedy.

--Booklist

A disturbing, unique, invaluable record of Poland's suffering and heroism during World War II. A well-deserved revival of the author's 1944 best-seller. (Starred Review)

--Kirkus Reviews

Secret State is an indispensible and compelling historical document of World War II and the Holocaust, written by a supremely courageous humanitarian.

--Tampa Bay Times

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

--Publishers Weekly

The story has all the characteristics of a spy-thriller--concealed film and suicide capsules, capture, interrogation, the drama of train travel and border checkpoints, the mysteries of those met, and countless convoluted escapes (a specialty of his)

--The Vienna Review

About the Author:

Jan Karski was born in od , Poland, in 1914. He received a degree in Law and Diplomatic Science in 1935 and served as a liaison officer of the Polish Underground during World War II. He carried the first eyewitness report of the Holocaust to a mostly unbelieving West, meeting with President Roosevelt in 1943 to plead for Allied intervention. Story of a Secret State was originally published in 1944, becoming a bestseller and Book of the Month Club selection. After the war, Karski earned his PhD at Georgetown University, where he served as a distinguished professor in the School of Foreign Service for forty years. He died in Washington, DC, in 2000. Karski has been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. In 2012, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

About this edition

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1589019830
• ISBN 13: 9781589019836
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 462