Georgetown University's 2011 Senior Convocation Speech cited Jan Karski as a universal inspiration and symbol of compassion. Read below.
Senior Convocation Remarks Georgetown University Loghman Fattahi
The year is 1995. I am sitting on a big rock by the road to our village, Zerdeh, in the mountains of Kurdistan in Iran. I am waiting for the bus that brings my dad home when he returns from visiting the nearest city to our village, Kerend.
In our village, my family’s livelihood depends on our herd of sheep and goats. In the cold winters, we live in the village; in the summers, we move up to the highlands to find good pasture. My dad is, in every sense, our family’s shepherd.That day my dad does not come home. Iran’s government arrests and locks him away in solitary confinement.
Without my dad, I took on the responsibility of looking after our flock. I spent many days and nights with my granddad in the mountains shepherding the herd.
Life became hard for my family. We were robbed twice: the first time thieves stole 9 of our lambs and the second time they stole 14 of our sheep. These thefts made life harder, but even harder was our fear that the government would execute my dad.
I remember one of my village friends casually remarking: “I guess your dad will be hanged!” My heart sank. My family always prayed for my dad.
My aunt visited every government official she could find, even visiting the officials' homes to ask their families for mercy.
After six months in solitary confinement, my dad was transferred to a prison. I vividly remember meeting him, clothed in his gray and white prisoner’s uniform.
As I hugged and kissed my dad, I felt how his captors had shown him no compassion.
In solitary confinement, his captors had punched him, beaten him with clubs, shocked him with electrical wires, and pierced his left foot with a nail.
His crime: advocating for the human rights of Kurds in Iran.
In 1998, a miracle happened. My dad fled from prison and escaped to Turkey. In Turkey, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees granted him political asylum. In 1999, he also arranged for my family to join him there.
On May 2nd 2000, we immigrated to the United States of America as political refugees. I celebrate May 2nd each year because it marks the beginning of a new life in freedom. On this May 2nd, I celebrated my 11th year in the United States.
I have spent four of those eleven years at Georgetown University. Georgetown has been my sanctuary; I have found that here COMPASSION is everywhere.
It is present when my classmates dedicate their time to mentor underserved children in the District of Columbia.
It is present in the celebration of our different beliefs as Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, and all others.
It is present in the Jesuits’ commitment to "the promotion of justice."
And for me, it is also present in the statue of an old man sitting with a cane in one hand. Everyday, I watch him contemplate his game of chess by the pond between White‐Gravenor and the exit to P Street.
In my mind, this statue exemplifies the human capacity for COMPASSION—a feeling of empathy for strangers affirmed in the crucible of human suffering.
This is the statue of Professor Jan Karski, a man who witnessed the tragedy of the Holocaust. Jan Karski embodies the compassionate spirit of the men and women of Georgetown University.
During WWII, Jan Karski was a Polish resistance fighter who carried secret messages from occupied Poland to the exiled Polish government in London. In 1943, Karski presented his last message to the Polish and British prime ministers in London and to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States. The message informed these leaders about the merciless annihilation of the Jews as he had witnessed it in the Polish cities of Warsaw and Belzec.
In his memoir, Story of a Secret State, Professor Jan Karski describes what he saw during his secret visit to the Warsaw concentration camp in October 1942:
For apart from their skin, eyes, and voice there was nothing human left in these palpitating figures. Everywhere there was hunger, misery, the atrocious stench of decomposing bodies, the pitiful moans of dying children, the desperate cries and gasps of a people struggling for life against impossible odds.
Jan Karski risked his life to infiltrate the concentration camp at Warsaw in order to bear authentic witness to the suffering of these innocent men, women, and children.
Professor Karski adds: “The images of what I saw…are…my permanent possessions.”
Learning about Jan Karski’s images takes me back to the image of my tortured dad in the prison, where his captors had shown him no empathy. In reflecting on the images of his life and my own, I have learned that compassion comes from within us.
In our lives, our captors may not show us compassion—they may even torture us—but we can choose to live life by a spirit of COMPASSION even in the midst of malice and suffering.
In the years to come, I will carry with me Jan Karski’s spirit of compassion— Georgetown’s spirit of compassion—especially for those moments when, representing our nation abroad, I may face images of malice and suffering.
I know before I leave the Hilltop this weekend, I will take a moment to say goodbye to Professor Karski, at least goodbye for a while. And I would like to invite you to find a moment to do the same. Walk by the statue, pause, study the old man's wise face, the broken game of chess he's playing, and think about what his compassion also could mean for you, and for your future.
