Meeting in Kraków
Jan Karski and his legacy were the focus of a meeting in Kraków on Friday, March 8, at the Consulate General of France. Over 30 people – French citizens living and working in Kraków from the organization Cracovie Accueil – gathered for the presentations about the legendary courier of the Polish Underground.
Wojciech Białożyt, executive director of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation’s Warsaw office, presented Karski’s life, from his youth in the multicultural, industrial city of Łódź through wartime missions and recognition he received starting in the late 1970s, including honorary Israeli citizenship, the Order of the White Eagle in Poland, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the U.S., which was granted to him posthumously by President Obama in 2012. The presentation was followed by a fragment screened from Claude Lanzmann’s film "Shoah" – the moving part where Karski speaks of his two undercover visits to the Warsaw ghetto, later a cornerstone in his eyewitness reports delivered in 1942 and 1943 to Western leaders including British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden and President Roosevelt in the U.S.
Director Białożyt also delivered an overview of mission of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation for the guests assembled at the French consulate, including the 2014 Centennial scholarship programs and the ceremony upcoming on March 18 for the new edition of Karski’s wartime memoir, “Story of the Secret State,” at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
The event was concluded by Chris Humnicki, who briefed participants on his plan to locate a bench memorial to Karski in Kraków, in the Kazimierz district, once home to the city’s Jewish community. Mr. Humnicki was joined by Karol Badyna, the Kraków-based sculptor collaborating on the Kraków bench project. Mr. Badyna’s Karski benches are already located in Kielce and Łódź in Poland, and on the campus of the university of Tel Aviv, on the Georgetown campus in Washington, DC and in front of the Polish Consulate in New York City. A Karski bench is being prepared for unveiling in the coming weeks in Warsaw.
Photos of the event are below, courtesy of Alain Schneider, Consulate General of France in Kraków.
