Jan Karski was an officer and a secret courier between the Polish government-in-exile in London and the Polish underground. On a secret mission, he infiltrated a national socialistic labor camp during the Second World War and escaped carrying detailed eyewitness accounts.
In the Warsaw Ghetto, which he entered through a tunnel, he was entreated “Don’t forget what you have seen here!” And that is what he did. He reported to the Polish government–in-exile, the British, and the American governments about the systematic killing and the build-up of infrastructure for mass murder.
Annoying Reports…
Without success, he spoke with politicians and catholic archbishops in America. When meeting with three influential Jews of the Roosevelt administration, Karski said that he risked his life to take this information outside Poland. His reports were seen as a Polish government-in-exile exaggeration by Judge Felix Frankfurter of the United States Supreme Court, who said coldly to his face, “I don’t believe you!”
These high and mighty men escaped any responsibility with the request for evidence, and the reliability of eye witness reports. Yes, history soon supplied the evidence, irrefutable evidence, too late for untold men, women and children.
… And Ice Cold Silence
Neither England nor America reacted. Dr. Rafael Medoff, director at the Wyman Institute for the study of the Holocaust hit the truth when he said, “Concerning the Holocaust, President Roosevelt worried that he would lose the election if he would bring half of the Jewish refugees to the States, and the British were mainly concerned about the Arab reaction (because of Palestine)…”
After the liberation of the German concentration camp survivors during 1944 and 1945, they all agreed, “Anything like this will never happen again.”
Money and Power Strengthen Forgetfulness!
Memory fades when tangible personal benefits are at stake. About 50 years later, genocide was committed in Rwanda. Human Rights Watch exposed, in a 900 page strongly worded report “Leave None to Tell the Story,” that in the depths of ignorance: “The Americans only wanted to save money. The Belgians wanted to save face. The French only thought that they wanted to remain allies with the [Rwanda] regime that committed the genocide.”
Hatred was stoked through the newspapers and cock-and-bull stories about the future victims were disseminated. In this case it had nothing to do with ethnic strife, an image that was being created. With a strategically staged mass murder, the privileged group in the country’s capital was kept in power.
Four months before the incident, the Canadian commander of UN troops stationed in Rwanda, General Dallaire, informed the United Nations of the assembly of an infrastructure that would systematically commit murder in Rwanda. His request for reinforcements or intervention by the international community was completely ignored.
Even worse, during the massacre, the majority of the UN troops were recalled. Within 100 days, more than 800,000 peoples’ lives were extinguished.
The Deceitful Smile
Totalitarian regimes are grand masters of propaganda and deception. They create artificial sympathy towards the powerful and stir up hatred towards their victims. In an atmosphere of the carrot and the stick, they produce illusionary realities that are bought into by the masses.
For example, the smiling face of “Uncle Joe” (Joseph Stalin), on the right side of Roosevelt and Churchill during a meeting in Malta, had a lot to do with seeing the Patriarch of the concentration camp in a positive light in the West, even when the evidence of his criminal activities were growing out of control.
And even if they should have known better, many Western intellectuals and parlor communists defended these inhuman systems.
After the collapse of the communist Soviet empire, the deceptive smile of those in power was assumed by those in Communist China. This way they pervert the synonym “The Land of the Smiling.”
The More the Money, the Faster They Forget
And again it is this icy silence that accompanies humanity like a black shadow from hell that grasps people’s hearts, reason, and numbs the conscience.
Today, it is not the fate of the Jews in German concentration camps and not the fate of the black Tutsi minority on the streets of Rwanda that messes with the businesses of the powerful and spoils their appetite, but it is the fate of the members of the spiritual Falun Gong movement in China.
According to a Canadian investigative report, these people are exposed to a “New Form of Evil.” It is reported that organs are removed from living bodies in Chinese death camps and sold for great economic benefit to foreigners and [Communist] Party fat cats. Preliminary estimates put the numbers of involuntary transplants to at least 42,000 between 2001 and 2005. Thus, 42,000 transplants translate into 42,000 human lives.
Rumors speak of mass medical examinations and killing as and when required. One needs to imagine, “A doctor points on his computer at some name on a list, the name that is associated with the matching medical values needed at that time. Then, the man, woman or child is shortly on an operating table, ready to be slaughtered. The left over cadaver is cremated.
Silence Before the Storm
It is as if one can almost hear the echo of the cold voice of American judge Felix Frankfurter, from America’s highest court of law, the Supreme Court, telling the courier Jan Karski, “I don’t belief you!”
Almost forgotten is the warning plea from Warsaw’s Ghetto, “Don’t forget what you have seen here!” And, the silence is almost eerie, the way they are trying to calm the pre-Christmas period.
And again, they ask for evidence and verifiable information from the witnesses to justify their inaction. Yes, it is true that no video documentation about these atrocities has come to light, and unfortunately, none of the victims could emigrate from the country.
Most likely there are more important reasons for remaining silent. But, what are the “old” powers’ reasons for remaining silent this time? When the truth can no longer be stifled, the people will ask in a storm of outrage, “Why did you not inform us? Why did you do that?”
But, at that time it will be too late for the many lives lost.
Not Limited to Defeat During this Inhumanity
This story isn’t only about moral defeats. Fifteen months before the end of the Second World War, a group of activists led by Peter Berson, despite resistance by interest groups, achieved recognition, and the U.S. government went into action. They formed an association to help the war refugees. Many Jewish refugees’ lives could be saved.
Though, it was only a small number, compared to the many that were murdered by the Nazi regime, 200,000 people survived because of this coordinated action.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted December 10, 1948. This action was apparently motivated by human rights violations during the Second World War. Many countries’ governments adopted this declaration. Therefore, December 10 was designated the International Day of Human Rights.
Read original article in German
