Politics – Literary Art and Illustration

Story of a Secret State, by Jan Karski [Ever-so-slightly-revised post…]

Sometimes, to see the present more clearly, you have to go back to the past.

Case in point, “this” post, created way back on December 6 of 2016 (a “lifetime” in blog history!), showing cover art – by an unknown artist – of Popular Library’s 1965 paperback imprint of Jan Karski’s Story of a Secret State.

However, it’s only befitting to show the very cover of the first edition of Karaki’s superbly written, riveting, and morally impassioned work. Published by Houghton Mifflin (Boston) in 1944, the front cover displays a stylized white eagle from the National Coat of Arms of Poland…

…while the rear cover shows Blackstone Studios’ portrait of Jan Karski.

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…and here is the front cover of Popular Library’s paperback:

We were in a part of Poland neither of us knew well.
We were in uniform, possessed no documents of any kind,
and had no idea of conditions about us.
We were hungry; weakened by the ordeals of the last few weeks;
and in the now heavy downpour had no protection but our threadbare garments.
In the circumstances, there was nothing to do but trust to luck.
Determining to knock at the door of the first dwelling we came upon,
we got up and walked through the wood
until we came to a narrow strip of grassless soil
that was obviously either a path or a road.

After about three hours of trudging through the rain,
we perceived the outlines of a village, and slackened our pace,
approaching it cautiously.
Tiptoeing quietly up to the first cottage,
we found ourselves at a small, typical peasants’ dwelling.
Hesitantly we stood before the door from under which a dim light issued.
As I raised my hand to knock, I felt a tremor of nervousness and apprehension.
I rapped on the door with brusque over-emphasis to allay my dread.

‘Who is it?’ The trembling voice of a peasant reassured me slightly.

‘Come out, please,’ I replied,
attempting to make my voice sound polite but authoritative,
‘it is very important.’
The door opened slowly,
disclosing a gray-headed old peasant with a grizzled beard.
He stood there in his underwear, obviously frightened and cold.
A wave of warm air from the interior made me feel almost faint
with the urge to enter and bask in it.

‘What do you want?’ he asked in a tone of mingled indignation and fear.

I ignored the question.
I decided to try to play boldly on his feelings.
‘Are you or are you not a Pole?’
I demanded sternly. ‘Answer me.’

‘I am a Polish patriot,’
he replied with greater composure and celerity than I had anticipated.

‘Do you love your country?’ I continued undismayed.

‘I do.’

‘Do you believe in God?’

‘Yes, I do.’

The old man evinced considerable impatience at my questions
but no longer seemed terrified – merely curious.
I proceeded to satisfy his curiosity.

‘We are Polish soldiers who have just escaped from the Germans.
We are going to join the army and help them save Poland.
We are not defeated yet. You must help us and give us civilian clothes.
If you refuse and try to turn us over to the Germans, God will punish you.’

He gazed at me quizzically from under his thick eyebrows.
I could not tell if he was amused, impressed, or alarmed.

‘Come inside,’ he said dryly, ‘out of this miserable rain.
I will not turn you over to the Germans.’

But Wait, There’s More!…

…some links pertaining to the life of Jan Karski, at…

… Remember This Film

… Wikipedia

… Culture PL

… Internet Archive (Jan Karski Papers)

… Online Archive of California (Jan Karski Papers)

… Jan Karski Educational Foundation

… Yad Vashem

… Jewish Virtual Library

… Accidental Talmudist

… Military History Fandom

December 6, 2016 – 242 hits as of 7/21/22

The Revolt of the Masses, by José Ortega y Gasset – 1950 (1930) [Robert Jonas]

A very colorful cover by Robert Jonas, for a very serious work…

“…experimental science is one of the most unlikely products of history.
Seers, priests, warriors and shepherds have abounded in all times and places.
But this fauna of experimental man apparently requires for its production
a combination of circumstances more exceptional than those that engender the unicorn.”

“The civilisation of the XIXth Century is, then,
of such a character that it allows the average man to take his place in a world of superabundance,
of which he perceives only the lavishness of the means at his disposal,
nothing of the pains involved.
He finds himself surrounded by marvelous instruments,
healing medicines,
watchful governments,
comfortable privileges.
On the other hand,
he is ignorant how difficult it is to invent those medicines and those instruments
and to assure their production in the future;
he does not realise how unstable is the organisation of the State
and is scarcely conscious to himself of any obligations.
This lack of balance falsifies his nature,
vitiates it in its very roots,
causing him to lose contact with the very substance of life,
which is made up of absolute danger,
is radically problematic.”

Reference

Jose Ortega y Gasset photo – Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona)

The God That Failed, edited by Richard Crossman, M.P. – 1949 (1959) [Unknown artist]

“For it is very much easier to lay the oblation of spiritual pride on the altar of world revolution than to snatch it back again.”

If despair and loneliness were the main motives for conversion to Communism,
they were greatly strengthened by the Christian conscience.
Here again, the intellectual, though he may have abandoned orthodox Christianity,
felt its prickings far more acutely than many of his unreflective church-going neighbors.
He at least was aware of the unfairness of the status and privileges which he enjoyed,
whether by reason of race or class or education.
The emotional appeal of Communism lay precisely in the sacrifices –
both material and spiritual –
which it demanded of the convert.
You can call the response masochistic, or describe it as a sincere desire to serve mankind.
But, whatever name you use, the idea of an active comradeship of struggle –
involving personal sacrifice and abolishing differences of class and race –
has had a compulsive power in every Western democracy.
The attraction of the ordinary political party is what it offers to its members:
the attraction of Communism was that it offered nothing and demanded everything,
including the surrender of spiritual freedom.

Here, indeed, is the explanation of a phenomenon which has puzzled many observers.
How could these intellectuals accept the dogmatism of Stalinism?
The answer is to be found scattered through the pages which follow.
For the intellectual, material comforts are relatively unimportant;
what he cares about most is spiritual freedom.
The strength of the Catholic Church has always been that it demands the sacrifice of that freedom
uncompromisingly,
and condemns spiritual pride as a deadly sin.
The Communist novice, subjecting his soul to the cannon law of the Kremlin,
felt something of the release which Catholicism also brings to the intellectual,
wearied and worried by the privilege of freedom.

Once the renunciation has been made, the mind,
instead of operating freely,
becomes the servant of a higher an unquestioned purpose.
To deny the truth is an act of service.
This, of course, is why it is useless to discuss any particular aspect of politics with a Communist.
Any genuine intellectual contact which you have with him
involves a challenge to his fundamental faith, a struggle for his soul.
For it is very much easier to lay the oblation of spiritual pride on the altar of world revolution
than to snatch it back again. (Richard Crossman)