The premiere of the play, entitled Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski, is set to be held at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in the US capital.
The play was written in 2014 by Clark Young and Derek Goldman of Georgetown University, where Karski lectured for almost four decades.
Originally conceived as an ensemble production starring Strathairn, it was first performed in its current form as a solo performance in 2019 at the Centennial Celebration Weekend of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, and then in London in 2020 as part of the 75th Anniversary Commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz.
In a statement to the media, playwright Derek Goldman, who also directs the performance, said: “It is our hope that the play offers audiences intimate and enduring access to Karski’s singular life and that Karski will inspire others to stand for justice and do what is right.”
On the eve of the premiere, actor David Strathairn attended a meeting at the Polish embassy in Washington. He told Polish state news agency PAP that “Karski’s appeals to political leaders and all people to search for what unites them and for their common humanity is of particular importance today, especially in polarised America.”
During World War II, as a member of anti-Nazi resistance, Karski took part in courier missions with dispatches from the Polish underground to the Polish government-in-exile. During one such mission, in July 1940, he was arrested by the Gestapo in Slovakia, tortured and transported to a hospital in Nowy Sącz, from where he was rescued by Polish resistance.
He soon resumed active service in the Information and Propaganda Bureau of the Home Army’s High Command, and in the summer of 1942 was assigned to perform a secret mission to London on behalf of the Polish Government’s Delegate in Poland and several political parties.
In order to gather evidence on the plight of Polish Jews, he was twice smuggled by Jewish underground leaders into the Warsaw Ghetto. He met several Allied leaders, including Anthony Eden, Britain’s foreign secretary, and US President Franklin Roosevelt, but failed to secure support for Polish Jews.
After the war, Karski settled in the United States and became a professor at Georgetown University in Washington. He remained an advocate of Holocaust memory until his death in 2000, aged 86.
(mk/jh)
Source: PAP