Biography
Jan Karski (1914–2000) was a Polish resistance courier during the Second World War who later appeared as himself in Claude Lanzmann’s documentary Shoah (1985).
Born in Łódź, he served as an emissary for the Polish government-in-exile, delivering eyewitness reports on conditions in the Warsaw ghetto and deportations to killing centres to Allied leaders in London and Washington. After the war he settled in the United States, where he became a professor of international relations at Georgetown University.
Karski was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 2012. He appeared in several later documentaries recounting his wartime experiences.
