Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection, Interview with Jan Karski (part 6)

- Well, you're meeting with Schmuel Zygielbojm. Did it take place a long time after you arrived in London?

- No. Well, now, I arrived in London either by the end of November or the first days of December.

- 1942.

- 1942. From the first, of course, moment, began to report. I couldn't report to Sikorski. Sikorski was in the United States, by the way, at that time Deputy Prime Minister, Mikołajczyk. I began with Mikołajczyk. Now, my mission in London was difficult. What I considered, I was doing very well because I understood my role. In London, I was not, so to say, a human being. I was purely a camera, a recording machine. I carried messages from one political party to another, from one individual to another, from some political party to the Prime Minister only. Now, those messages...

- All this was purely-

- Purely memory. I had a good memory. Now, those messages, and I knew it, sometimes were contradictory messages. Socialist Party would say, our vision of future Poland. This time, the working classes will not allow themselves to be manipulated by another dictator like Piłsudski. We strong, the working class will take government, and we are prepared for it, and we will do it. Peasant Party giving messages to the peasant representatives. 75% of the Poles are peasants. We feed this nation. We were never allowed to govern Poland. This time, we are ready. When Poland emerges, Poland will have a peasant government, and we will take the fate of the nation into our hands. So I understood this, that I was purely a recording machine I was instructed and sworn in by every political party, by the delegate, by every individual that I will not comment on their messages. I might answer the questions if they asked me, but on my initiative, I was supposed to be only a tape recorder.

- It must have been a horrible experience, killing.

- I did very well. There was not a single complaint against me. I reported precisely. I had everything in my head. I reported correctly. There was never a single complaint eventually, rumors started that emissary from Poland, yes, eventually tell different things to different political leaders. But eventually, Prime Minister Sikorski took care of it. One of the Council of Minsters, when the problem started, that just recently we received information from Poland, one leader says 'We received recently information from Poland of a different nature'. General Sikorski eventually told me, Lieutenant, we have a problem with you. But I straightened it up because then I told them 'You did not receive information from Poland recently. You received messages from your own people to you. And be careful, keep it straight. Don't say that such is the situation. We don't know what that individual you have in mind all of you, told you. He didn't know himself'. Now, at that time, I was firmly convinced this was within my structure. I was to go back to Poland again. I was extremely careful. Precision, no comments, unless I was asked for some personal comments whatsoever. I must do well. I wanted to go back to Poland again.

I liked this work. I think I was successful with this. I got the highest military decoration, by the way, for my work. Now, the first days, of course, I reported, the first I member, I have a message to the President of the Republic. What do you have? Well, let the President of the Republic pass the information to the government, for my instructions were to the President of the Republic, and they recognize all of this. I had no difficulties. Well, now, one of the first contacts, it must have been two, three, four days after I began to circulate. Well, I was instructed. Now, you have messages the Jewish leaders. Who are the leaders? I said, three individuals: Schmuel Zygielbojm, Dr. Schwarzbart, Dr. Leon Grosfeld. All right. Zygielbojm was the first. As a matter of fact, I remembered that the message which I carry was given to me in a joint session, Zionist leader and Bund leader. Could I see both of them together? Yes, it was so organized. Schwarzbart did not show up for one reason or another. I saw him for meeting with Zygielbojm. Zygielbojm is alone. I saw him in the government office, Straton House.

- Stop, stop, stop.

- The Straton House was one of the main governmental offices. When I entered the room with my mission, what was also very important is, so to say to size up a man. I saw in Zygielbojm a man... With this kind of man, I had no dealings, frankly, very much, either in my underground activities or before the war. Before the war, I entered Polish diplomatic service. Zygielbojm. First, in every respect, his face, the way he walked, his gestures, his language, typically proletarian. He could be an unskilled worker. I didn't know this people.

- Really?

- In my life in Poland. Next, very Jewish. His Polish was not literary Polish, like the Bund leader in Warsaw, spoke beautiful Polish literary language. Zygielbojm, I had before me, proletarian. So I was careful.

- Did he have a Yiddish accent when he spoke Polish?

- Yeah.

- Yes?

- Yes.

- He looked very Jewish?

- He looked Jewish, yes. Rough face, you know. Nothing refined about the Zygielbojm.

- How was the look?

- Rather smallish, not tall at all, not fat, physically nervous, agitated.

- Very nervous?

- Well, at the beginning, no. But then during the conversation, yes, as a matter of fact, most of the time he was pacing the floor. When I spoke about ghetto and about Bełżec. As a matter of fact, on numerous occasions, I would stop. 'Why don't you talk? Talk. You came here to talk. So talk'. From the very beginning, we didn't start off well. I entered the room. He got up, we shook hands, and he asked me in a rather sarcastic way 'Mr. Emissary, I was told you want to see me. What do you want?' I answered 'Mr. Zygilboym, I don't want anything. I have messages, and I am supposed to give you messages. They concerned the Jewish matters in Poland. I am going to see Dr. Schwarzbart, and I'm going to see Dr. Grosfeld'. He says 'Jewish messages. So who sent you here?' I had a meeting with Bund leader and the Zionist leader. They introduced themselves in this'. He looked at me. 'Well, you don't look Jewish to me. They send messages? Are you Jewish?' 'No, I am not Jewish'. 'All right, so what?' Now, I give him the messages one after another, as I described previously.

- I mean, all the requests.

- All the requests, yes. He interrupted me several times 'But I know all of this. I know all of this'. At that moment, I didn't realize he did know through the radio, through dispatches, et cetera. He was not impressed.

- Not impressed?

- Not impressed by me. 'I know all of this'. Then I say 'Well, the Jewish leaders organized for me two visits in the ghetto, one visit in the Bełżec camp. And my instructions are to report on this, particularly to the Jewish leaders'. 'It's a Jewish ghetto, Bełżec? How did you get there?'

- He said Ghetto?

- Warsaw Ghetto, and then Bełżec.

- Yes, but he said a 'Jewish ghetto, Bełżec'?

- No, no. Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw and then Bełżec, camp Bełżec. And he says 'Well, you were there? How was it organized? Who organized for you?' I told him how actually it was organized. And now I give him the material.

- You gave him the-

- My information, what I saw. At that time, I was doing well. I was a machine. I just reported very often with closed eyes. I didn't sometime want to see to whom I was reporting.

- You didn't want to see. What? You didn't want to see the people you were reporting?

- Sometimes, yes. I didn't want to see. I was closed eyes, and I was just... I was conditioned very well. It was not my first mission, as you know from my curriculum war activities. Now with Zygielbojm, when I began to describe this, he got up and he paces the room, walks. Most of the time now he paces the room. Sometimes I would stop. 'Why did you stop? Talk. This is why you are for here.' All right. I controlled myself very well. Then he started to ask me questions. I describe Jewish ghetto and those children and Jews and the dying Jew. 'Did you talk to any of them?' I said 'This was not my business. I didn't talk to any of them'. 'Why didn't you talk to them? Are you not interested? How they felt about it?' It was altogether rather something like a challenge, you know, against me.

- He was aggressive.

- Oh, yes. And rather unfriendly. I said 'Mr. Zygilboim, this was not my mission. I talked to the representative of the Bund, representative of the Zionists in Poland, not to the Jews in the ghetto. I was not interested in talking to them. This was not within my instructions'. 'Are you interested so much in the Jewish problem?' I said 'I don't know, Mr. Zygielbojm. Now I don't know in what I am interested. I lost myself. I'm not interested in anything. I was sent here to report'. At a certain point, I got upset. 'Mr. Zygielbojm, you have no right to ask me this questions. You want to listen to my report? Listen to my report. If you want, I walk out'. 'All right, so talk, so talk. Talk, man'. He called me, in most instances, Mr. Emissaire, but rather sarcastically, Mr. Emissaire. Now, talking about, again, ghetto in Warsaw, camp in Bełżec.

- Did he ask many questions about Bełżec?

- No. He was walking. Did he seem to be- Then I saw him, something like, disintegrating this. Apparently, this he didn't see himself, what I saw. Then he started to ask me questions, some of his questions. How did you feel about it. My answer was, I had no feelings. I'm not interested in my feelings. Again, I would interrupt him 'Mr. Zygielbojm, you have no business of asking me those questions. Do you want to listen to my report?' 'All right, talk, man. Talk, talk.' Walking like... A little like mad, nervous mad, nervous, disintegrating almost, minute after minute. He sits down, he gets up. Well, then comes the point after. Ghetto and Bełżec. Before, he interrupted me several times. 'I know all of this. I know all of this'. Then he says.