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Statue of legendary WWII courier Karski installed in Kraków

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Nick Hodge 26.01.2016 17:39
A statue of Jan Karski, 'the man who tried to stop the Holocaust', was officially unveiled in Kraków, southern Poland, on Tuesday afternoon.
Mayor of Kraków Jacek Majchrowski and head of the Krakow Jewish Community Tadeusz Jakubowicz on the 'Karski Bench.' Photo: PAP/Jacek BednarczykMayor of Kraków Jacek Majchrowski and head of the Krakow Jewish Community Tadeusz Jakubowicz on the 'Karski Bench.' Photo: PAP/Jacek Bednarczyk

The ceremony was attended by figures including Mayor of Kraków Jacek Majchrowski, head of the Kraków Jewish Community Tadeusz Jakubowicz and former Polish consul in New York Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka.

The bronze monument, which was sculpted by Karol Badyna, takes the form of a bench, and it is the seventh in the world to be dedicated to the courier, following those in Washington, New York and Tel Aviv, as well those in the Polish cities of Warsaw, Kielce and Łódż.

The statue has been installed on Szeroka Street in Kraków's Kazimierz district, once the heart of Jewish life in the city.

As an emissary of the Polish Underground State, Karski was a link with the Polish government-in-exile, which was initially based in France, before it moved to London in 1940.

He later brought extensive reports of the Holocaust from Warsaw to the West.

As a result of his wartime record, Karski (whose real name was Jan Kozielewski) was declared a 'righteous gentile' by Israel's Yad Vashem Institute, and he was given honorary Israeli citizenship.

He settled in the US after the war, and he worked as a professor at the University of Georgetown, Washington, for over 40 years, and died in 2000. (nh)

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