Story of a Secret State

Karski's Story of a Secret State stands as inspiring memoir of World War II and the Holocaust. With elements of a spy thriller, documenting his experiences in the Polish Underground, and as eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust, this volume is a testimony of one man's courage, and a nation's struggle for resistance against oppression.

Jan Karski was born in Lódź, Poland, in 1914. He received a degree in Law and Diplomatic Science in 1935 and served as a liaison officer of the Polish Underground during World War II. He carried the first eyewitness report of the Holocaust to a mostly unbelieving West, meeting with President Roosevelt in 1943 to plead for Allied intervention. Story of a Secret State was originally published in 1944, becoming a bestseller and Book of the Month Club selection. After the war, Karski earned his PhD at Georgetown University, where he served as a distinguished professor in the School of Foreign Service for forty years. He died in Washington, DC, in 2000. Karski has been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. In 2012, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.