Website note: As this writer has declined to provide a real name, we have edited (i.e. shortened) the letter rigorously. We discourage correspondents from seeking to post letters under any except their real names.

JAN KARSKI was obviously Jewish. Ever since 1949 every major figure of Polish public life whose image was peddled by the media (both communist and western) was.

The only person I heard of, who at least really tried to “drill down deeper into Jan Karski” without having based himself on the sanctified official version of his story, is someone whose real name I am not even sure of and who writes (in a somewhat hillbilly style) in various Usenet groups as Jozef Pawlikowski, Miroslaw Dragan, Irena Zdziarska and – most recently – Polina Borowska.* [ His e-mail address is polinhis@catskill.net] This person claims to have had access to Karski’s grammar-school records, where his religion was apparently recorded as Mosaic. The school in question was Pilsudski Memorial School (presently Kosciuszko Memorial) at Sienkiewicza Street in Lodz, Poland. The archives of the school are apparently accessible to researchers.

According to the same source:

• Karski converted to Catholicism before enrolling in college studies at Szkola Handlu Zagranicznego (School of International Commerce) at Narutowicza Street in Lodz.
• His brother remained true to Judaism and was later the chief of Ordnungsdienst (Jewish ghetto police) in a small town in Eastern Poland during the German occupation (my source claims David Engle mentions this fact in his book “In the Shadow of Auschwitz”).
• Karski and his Jewish wife, a ballet dancer, who were childless, bequeathed all their possessions to a foundation for Judaic studies.
• His book “Story of a Secret State” has been ghost-written by a writer named Sinclair (sorry, no first name given).

“Candide”

* Dragan is the real name.

Related items on this website: In Defence of Jan Karski | Ted O’Keefe adds his two ha’porth | Heath replies to O’Keefe | Jan Karski Dies: Pole who brought word of Holocaust | O’Keefe responds to Heath on Belzec | Lowdown on the late Jan Karski | Ted O’Keefe adds more | Mills drills down deeper in Karski