The inspiring story of Jan Karski’s quest to prevent the annihilation of Poland’s Jews during the Holocaust is the subject of the film “Remember This,” which will be shown in a special screening at 4 p.m. Sunday, April 2, in the Paschall Theatre at Montgomery Bell Academy.
The film is an adaptation of original stage production “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski” and stars Oscar-nominee David Strathairn.
Karski was a devout Roman Catholic Pole, who after witnessing the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis at the Auschwitz concentration camp and in the Warsaw ghetto took it upon himself to reach the political leaders in London and Washington, D.C., to urge them to intervene to stop the tragedy.
After surviving the devastation of the Blitzkrieg, Karski joined the Polish Underground and risked his life to carry the first eyewitness reports of the Holocaust to the Western world, and ultimately, the White House. On his journey, he was taken prisoner first by the Russians, who threw him into a labor camp, and then by the Germans, who beat him to within an inch of his life. He fled the Nazis, with the help of Polish partisans, through a daring escape from a hospital.
After the war. Karksi earned a doctorate from the Jesuit-run Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and taught there in the School of Foreign Service.
Karski visited Nashville in 1996, during which he met with Nashville Bishop Edward Kmiec, whose family were originally from Poland, and he gave a moving speech to a capacity crowd from varying faith traditions at The Temple. In 2012, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Karski the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
E Thomas Wood, co-author of the biography “Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust,” will give introductory remarks before the screening of the film.
For more information, email wood at tom@the-wood-family.org.
