http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters2714_896.html
WARSAW, July 14 (Reuters)
- Jan Karski, who travelled clandestinely from Nazi-occupied
Poland to London during World War Two to try to alert a
sceptical West to the Holocaust, has died in the United
States. He was 86. Karski, who was a courier for
Poland"s underground Home Army, was among the
first to alert Western governments to the
extermination of Jews in the ghettoes and
death camps they created in Poland. Highly
intelligent, with a photographic memory, he
twice clandestinely entered the Warsaw
ghetto in October 1942 on orders from the
Home Army to take an eyewitness account
to the West. He was also smuggled into a
concentration camp to obtain more evidence
of the genocide. Polish newspapers
reported that Karski, a U.S. resident since
the end of the war, died on Thursday in
hospital in Washington. Elie Wiesel, a
Holocaust survivor awarded the Nobel
Peace prize for his role as a witness to the
genocide, was quoted by newspapers as
paying a profound tribute to Karski"s role.
"One of the most eminent personalities of
the 20th century has passed away. A
righteous, just person who never hesitated
to risk his life to give the testimony to truth,"
Wiesel said. The Nazis murdered some six
million Jews in the Holocaust, half of them
in death camps they built in Poland. Karski,
a pre-war Polish diplomat, made several
clandestine trips to the West during the war.
He was captured during one of his first
missions and tortured by the Gestapo. After
his rescue by the Home Army he became a
legendary messenger between the
underground and the government-in-exile in
London. When he reached the West his
accounts of mass murder of Jews were
initially disbelieved by Western leaders. A
top U.S. judge told him, "I am not saying
you are lying, but I don"t believe you." A
gifted linguist, he sometimes travelled in the
disguise of a German officer. On other
occasions he eluded border guards during
arduous treks through the Tatra mountains
between Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Karski received the Righteous among
Nations award from Israel in recognition of
his help in saving Jews. He remained in the
United States after World War Two,
refusing to return to Poland where the
Soviet Army destroyed the Home Army and
installed a Stalinist regime. He lectured in
politics at Georgetown University in
Washington before retiring.
