Written by Clark Young and Derek Goldman, the play, entitled “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski”, starred Oscar-nominated actor David Strathairn.
The event marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi-German concentration camp of Auschwitz.
It was organized by the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, where Karski lectured for over four decades, Human Rights Watch and the Queen Mary University of London.
The play focuses on the life and legacy of Jan Karski, who served as an officer in the Polish underground during World War II and carried the first eye-witness accounts of the Holocaust to the world.
He worked as a courier, entering the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi Izbica transit camp, where he saw first-hand the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis.
Ewa Juńczyk-Ziomecka, Chair of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation in Poland, told the media that London was an important place on Karski’s itinerary.
He arrived there from Nazi-occupied Poland in December 1942 as a courier of the Polish underground state and a witness of the Holocaust. He met there with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and representatives of the Polish government-in-exile.
Later Karski traveled to the United States, where he met with President Roosevelt.
In November 2019 “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski” was staged at Georgetown University in Washington during the celebration of the centenary of its School of Foreign Service, an event attended by former president Bill Clinton and US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The two performances of the play attracted an audience of over 1,400.
Born in 1914, Karski became a U.S. citizen in 1954 and died in 2000, aged 86.
(mk/pk)