Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World - Hardcover

Briskly paced, this is a gripping and immediate account of Nazi brutality from a brave leader of the resistance. (Starred Review) Publishers Weekly A disturbing, unique, invaluable record of Poland's suffering and heroism during World War II. A well-deserved revival of the author's 1944 best-seller. (Starred Review) Kirkus Reviews Those who fear they have been desensitized by the sheer volume of information chronicling Nazi brutality in occupied Europe must read this memoir... This is an exciting but often painful recounting of one man's witness to terror and tragedy. Booklist The story has all the characteristics of a spy-thriller-concealed film and suicide capsules, capture, interrogation, the drama of train travel and border checkpoints, the mysteries of those met, and countless convoluted escapes (a specialty of his) The Vienna Review Secret State is an indispensible and compelling historical document of World War II and the Holocaust, written by a supremely courageous humanitarian. Tampa Bay Times

In 1939, Jan Karski, a brilliant young Polish student, enjoyed a life of parties and pleasure. But when war broke out his familiar world was destroyed. Karski became a liaison officer of the Polish underground and POW of the Red Army who eventually infiltrated both the Warsaw Ghetto and a German resettlement camp, carrying the first eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to a mostly disbelieving West. He met with President Roosevelt in 1943 and pleaded for Allied intervention; Roosevelt then established the War Refugee Board, a federal agency that helped settle surviving Jews. Soon after this Karski wrote of his experiences in Story of a Secret State, which was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1944 and became a Book on the Month Club selection. Near the end of the war Karski, a devout Catholic, remained Washington and earned a PhD at Georgetown in the School of Foreign Service and later taught at Georgetown for forty years; he died in 2000. In 2012 Karski received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. According to Alan Furst, Story of a Secret State "stands in the absolute first rank of books about the resistance in World War II."