[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 147 (Thursday, December 4, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6356-S6357]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       CELEBRATING THE CENTENNIAL YEAR OF THE BIRTH OF JAN KARSKI

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 594.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 594) celebrating the centennial year 
     of the birth of Jan Karski and honoring his extraordinary and 
     courageous life.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the 
resolution.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, today, I join with my colleague, Mr. 
Kirk, in introducing a resolution honoring the heroic life of Jan 
Karski.
  Jan Karski was born in Lodz, Poland, on April 24, 1914. He began his 
life of service in the Polish diplomatic service before he enlisted in 
the military, serving in the Polish army when German soldiers invaded 
Poland in 1939. He was subsequently captured and sent to a prisoner 
camp.
  In 1940, Jan Karski fled to Warsaw and joined the Polish underground 
resistance movement, where he served as a courier delivering messages 
detailing the horrific brutality of the Nazis to the Polish government-
in-exile. Mr. Karski played a key role in providing some of the first 
eye witness accounts of the Holocaust to governments of other nations. 
In July of 1943, Mr. Karski came to the U.S. and met with President 
Roosevelt to describe the horrors of the Nazi genocide he had 
witnessed. He became a U.S. citizen in 1954.
  Throughout his life, Jan Karski remained committed to providing 
global awareness of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. 
After World War II, Mr. Karski became a student at Georgetown 
University, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1952. He went on to teach, 
calling on his own experiences, at Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School 
of Foreign Service for 35 years until he retired in 1984.
  Jan Karski has been honored on multiple occasions for his courageous 
efforts to open the world's eyes to the atrocities of the Holocaust. In 
2012, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded him the Presidential 
Medal of Freedom, and more recently, the Parliament of the Republic of 
Poland designated 2014 as ``The Year of Jan Karski.''
  One hundred years after his birth, I ask my colleagues to join me in 
honoring the courageous life and lasting legacy of Mr. Karski, a truly 
honorable Polish American, by celebrating the centennial year of Jan 
Karski's birth.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution 
be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider 
be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action 
or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The resolution (S. Res. 594) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  (The resolution, with its preamble, is printed in today's Record 
under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')

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