The World Knew:
Jan Karski’s Mission for Humanity
NOVEMBER 1 – NOVEMBER 14: A Karski Foundation Exhibition about “The Man Who Tried to Stop the Holocaust.” Lindenwood University, Spellmann Center: co-sponsored by the Center for International and Global Studies and the Liberty and Ethics Center.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 7:30 p.m.: E. Thomas Wood, biographer of Jan Karski, will speak on “The Man Who Tried to Stop the Holocaust” in the Spellmann Campus Center’s Anheuser-Busch Leadership Room followed by a panel discussion.
Jan Karski carried out one of the most monumental missions attempted in World War II—a cross-continent trek to inform Western leaders in 1942 that the Holocaust was underway. As an emissary for the Polish Underground State, Karski carried classified information from the resistance on the ground in occupied Poland to the Polish government-in-exile. Only 28 at the time, Karski twice entered the Warsaw Ghetto and later, in disguise, penetrated a Nazi transit camp to see Jews being herded to their deaths. With these eyewitness accounts, he met with President Roosevelt to inform him about the ongoing genocide. Tragically, the Allies chose not to act on his report.
The tour of The World Knew: Jan Karski’s Mission for Humanity is organized by the Jan Karski Educational Foundation. The exhibition was created by the Polish History Museum. Funding was provided by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs with additional funding from the National Endowment for Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition publication do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
