Harrowing look at Jews' predicament

This is one more book to add to the sorry accumulation of works documenting the Nazis' insensate crimes against humanity, Jewry in particular.

Described as a novel, it is in fact a three-part book - translated from the French by Ian Monk - in which the author provides a moving, summarised description of Polish Underground messenger Jan Karski's 1944 book, Story of a Secret State, in which he tells of his experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a prisoner tortured by the Gestapo, and many more soul-searing events.

It is in the third section that Haenel himself assumes the persona of Karski by becoming his voice in the first person.

Rather than a novel, it is an interpretation of Karski's actions and likely thought-processes.

The book begins with Karski's moving testimony given in the 1980s for Claude Lanzmann's film, Shoah.

The main theme of the book is the world's lack of response in World War 2 when told of the predicament of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and of the existence of extermination camps.

As Karski pointed out in his book, the Allies did not react when Poland was dismantled, nor did they react, five years later, during the Warsaw Uprising, when they left the Poles to be massacred.

He maintained that in terms of democracy, Poland had no lessons to be learnt from anyone: its government did not collaborate with the Nazi occupiers, as was the case in other countries.

"... it would seem that in his eyes, and in the eyes of the Polish people, Poland was abandoned and this will always be so," Haenel writes.

"Abandoned by Europe, abandoned by History, abandoned by the world's memory".

As a messenger for the Poles in 1943, chosen to report to the Allies the fate of the Jews in Poland, Karski obtained private audiences with dignitaries as high as President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"I cannot believe it," said US Supreme Court Judge Felix Frankfurter to Karski.

"Do you think I'm lying?" challenged Karski.

"No," answered Frankfurter. "I just said I cannot believe it."

This is yet one more harrowing aspect of World War 2 in which a reader may be moved to tears.

Karski twice managed to be taken on a tour of the Warsaw Ghetto.

One paragraph of his recollections: "Corpses were lying naked on the street.

Why, Karski asked, were they lying there naked? The guide then explained that, when a Jew died, they removed his clothes and then threw his body out on to the street.

They would have to pay to have him buried and, here, no-one could pay.

And it meant that they could get his clothes back.

" 'Here, every rag counts,' the guide said."

  • Clarke Isaacs is a former chief of staff of the Otago Daily Times.