- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Jan K., a non-Jewish Pole, who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1914. He recalls working as a diplomatic courier for the Polish government in exile during the war; receiving messages from Jewish leaders who wanted the Polish government in London and the Allies to know what was happening to Jews in Poland; secretly entering the Warsaw ghetto with Leon Feiner, a Bund leader, as his guide; returning a second time; Feiner arranging for him to be smuggled into a camp; traveling to a village via Lublin; being provided with a guard's uniform by his guide; becoming overwhelmed by the chaos, noise, and shooting after entering the camp and leaving quickly; being smuggled out of Poland with assistance from the Armia Krajowa, using documents of a French forced laborer; staying with the Polish underground in Paris; being smuggled to Barcelona, Madrid, then Gibraltar; being flown to London; meeting with Anthony Eden for twenty minutes and with Szmul Zygielbojm who reacted very emotionally to what he told him; being taken to the Polish embassy in Washington; the ambassador, Jan Ciechanowski, accompanying him to visit President Franklin Roosevelt; speaking to him for over an hour; and meeting with Jewish leaders, including Stephen S. Wise. Mr. K. discusses the hypocrisy of western leaders who claimed they did not know about the extermination of the Jews, and he names publications about his mission, including his own book. Jan K. identifies the camp and the village as Belzec. However, subsequent scholarship documents that he was mistaken and has identified Izbica Lubelska as the transit camp and village.
- Author/Creator
- K., Jan, 1914-2000.
- Published
- Boston, Mass. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1987
- Interview Date
- December 4, 1987.
- Locale
- Poland
Warsaw
Łódź (Poland)
Paris (France)
Barcelona (Spain)
Madrid (Spain)
Gibraltar
London (England)
Washington (D.C.)
- Cite As
- Jan K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1107). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Langer, Lawrence L., interviewer.
- Notes
-
Related publication: Story of a secret state / Jan Karski. -- Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, c1944.
Related publication: Auschwitz and the Allies / Martin Gilbert. -- New York : Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, c1981.
Related publication: Defeat in victory / Jan Ciechanowski. -- Garden City, New York : Doubleday & company, inc., c1947.
Related publication: Karski : how one man tried to stop the Holocaust / E. Thomas Wood and Stanislaw M. Jankowski. -- New York : Wiley and Sons, c1994.
