I Do Not Say You Are Lying. I Say I Do Not Believe You

In July 1943, Felix Frankfurter, a Jewish US Supreme Court Justice met with and listened carefully to Polish diplomat Jan Karski. Karski, a Polish Catholic, was also a courier for the Polish resistance and had been smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto and the Izbica Transit Camp to personally witness the atrocities being committed against Jews. Karski gave Frankfurter a lengthy account of what he had personally observed, including mass starvation, dead and dying children, and the beating and transport of Jews. Justice Frankfurter responded to Karski’s story with a combination of acknowledgement, denial, disbelief and apathy. He consequently did nothing to raise the alarm about the German action that was targeting and murdering innocent Jewish civilians that resulted in 6,000,000 deaths.

The moral courage of Jan Karski encourages us to both bear and share witness. This story resonates by speaking to the current state of urgency as autocratic regimes strengthen around the world.

For further reading

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/karski-recalls-his-meeting-with-united-states-supreme-court-justice-felix-frankfurter-1943-claude-lanzmann/dgFS7OKiw9qznQ?hl=en