On November 6-8, 2013 an International Multidisciplinary Academic Research Conference ‘Jan Karski – Witness, Emissary, Man’ took place at the Zamość 'Synagogue' Center of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland. The conference was organized by the Foundation in partnership with the Polish-Jewish Literature Studies Center at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland and The Union of Jewish Communities in Poland. The conference was held under the honorary patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland Bronisław Komorowski.

Project is co-financed by the Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland within the framework of the contest 'Cooperation in the field of public diplomacy 2013'.


CONFERENCE PROGRAM

The conference 'Jan Karski - Witness, Emissary, Man' was transmitted online in two language versions: Polish and English and is still available to watch: BROADCAST OF THE CONFERENCE .

During World War II, Jan Karski – an emissary of the Polish Secret State – was the first to inform the Allies about the tragedy of European Jewry. Karski entered the Warsaw Ghetto and a transit ghetto, where he witnessed Jews being sent to the death camp in Bełżec. He then traveled to London and Washington to tell world leaders about what he had seen. It is thanks to him that the world first learned about the Holocaust.

His book ’Story of a Secret State’, in which he described his mission, was published in the United States in 1944. After the war Karski could not return to Communist Poland and stayed in Washington where for many years he worked at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

The aim of the conference was to broaden, consolidate and promote knowledge about Karski’s life and work. We also hope that the conference has contributed to bringing together academic circles from all over the world and popularizing knowledge about Karski worldwide.

The conference was held at the 'Synagogue' Center of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, located inside a Renaissance synagogue in Zamość, restored by the Foundation in 2009-2011 thanks to support from the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism.

Media patronage: Forum of the Polish Jews www.fzp.net.pl, Radio Lublin www.radio.lublin.pl. 

Photo: H. Szkutnik.