[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 99 (Tuesday, July 17, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S7803]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        JAN KARSKI--A QUIET HERO

 Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, today I remind my colleagues of a 
story I read in the New York Times almost exactly one year ago today. 
It was the July 15, 2000, obituary of a man named Jan Karski. I was 
absolutely fascinated by this man's life story and with the first 
anniversary of his death, I am reminded of the role he played in our 
modern history. Like few others, he had a unique window view into an 
appalling and shameful era of history--the Holocaust. Let me explain.
  During World War II, Jan Karski brought to the Allied leaders in the 
West--and at no small risk to his own life--what is believed to be the 
first eyewitness reports of Hitler's indescribable acts of hate and 
cruelty against the Jews. In 1942, Jewish resistance leaders asked Jan, 
then a 28-year-old courier for the Polish underground, to be their 
voice to the West--to convey to the Allies an actual eyewitness account 
of the Jewish genocide in Europe.
  He readily accepted this dreadful task, as he knew that someone had 
to tell the world exactly what was happening in Europe. Though he 
succeeded in relaying the nightmarish sights to Western leaders, his 
reports were met initially by indifference. While many others 
eventually would confirm Jan's horrifying accounts of the Jewish 
concentration camps and the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland, he was one of the 
first--and one of very few--to take a stand against these atrocities.
  We are discovering that Jan's voice was not the only warning of the 
wholesale slaughter of innocent human life by Nazi Germany. As we 
speak, a dedicated group of individuals, both in government and in the 
private sector, are declassifying and releasing to the public thousands 
and thousands of pages of previously classified material about Nazi war 
criminals, persecution, and looting. This effort is the result of the 
``Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act''--legislation I wrote into law with 
my friends and colleagues from New York, Senator Patrick Moynihan and 
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.
  Just this past April, in fact, our law made history with the release 
of 10,000 pages of previously classified Central Intelligence Agency, 
(CIA), files on 20 key figures from the Nazi party, including Adolf 
Hitler, Klaus Barbie, Adolf Eichmann, Kurt Waldheim, Heinrich Mueller, 
and Josef Mengele. And, prior to that last summer, 400,000 pages of 
other historical documents were released.
  A number of those documents contained information that Fritz Kolbe 
provided to U.S. intelligence authorities in 1943. Mr. Kolbe was a 
member of the German resistance and worked in the German Foreign 
Office. Code-named ``George Wood,'' Mr. Kolbe put his life on the line 
by traveling to Switzerland, carrying highly sensitive information on 
Nazi activities for delivery to U.S. intelligence agents. A complete 
set of these documents in translation is now available for historical 
review. Also available in its entirety is the U.S. State Department's 
complete debrief of Mr. Kolbe from September 1945. This document shows 
that he did not act alone, but relied on what he called his ``Inner 
Circle,'' which consisted of as many as 20 other Germans. The names of 
these individuals are not well known members of the resistance--they 
are ordinary people, like Jan Karski.
  While the gruesome reality of Nazi Germany eventually became clear to 
the world and as the Allies acted to end Hitler's evil regime, Jan's 
job--his mission--never really ended. For the rest of his life, he 
carried with him the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the sadness of 
the Holocaust. Karski, himself, once said: ``This sin will haunt 
humanity to the end of time. It does haunt me. And, I want it to be 
so.''
  Jan Karski wanted us all to be haunted by the Holocaust. He wanted us 
never to forget. He devoted his life to ensuring that such inhumane 
horror would be present forever in our collective conscience, so that 
we, above all else, will never let this dark chapter in our history 
ever, ever repeat itself.
  While we often think of heroes in terms of epic feats on the 
battlefield or in the face of great danger, Jan Karski is no less a 
hero for giving a voice to a silent slaughter. I ask my colleagues to 
think about that and to take some time to consider the life of Jan 
Karski and the life of Fritz Kolbe. Their stories, along with others 
newly discovered, help fill the holes of history, while revisiting a 
fundamental, troubling question of what the West knew about the 
Holocaust and when we knew it.
  I encourage my colleagues to learn more about Jan and Fritz. Read 
last year's New York Times obituary about Jan's life. Talk about his 
story with your families. To understand the Holocaust is to remember 
the lives of Jan Karski and Fritz Kolbe--to remember--``always 
remember,'' as Jan would say--what their sacrifices meant--and still 
mean--for our world.

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