Here are excerpts from the material published in 1943 in New York in the book "Black Book of Polish Jewry", which is apparently the source of the descriptions given by Karski in his book "Story of a Secret State", published the following year, of his alleged visits to the Warsaw Ghetto and to the extermination camp at Belzec.
Page 119:
Living conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto on the eve of the mass-extermination, which started in July 1942, were dramatically described by an eye-witness, a secret courier of the Polish Underground organization, who reached London at the beginning of December 1942 after succeeding in getting out of Poland. His report was published in Voice of the Underground, a monthly newsletter of the Jewish Labor Committee, New York, in March 1943. Immediately upon arrival of the courier in London, the Polish Government summoned the two Jewish members of the Polish National Council, the late Szmul Zygielbojm and Dr I Szwarcbart, and turned over to them the documents which the courier had brought.
The description of the "secret courier" as having reached London at the beginning of December 1942 is certainly consistent with the documentary record of Karski's activities at that time. Accordingly, it is entirely possible that Karski brought with him a report on conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto, a report that had been given to him by the two Jewish leaders he met in Warsaw in August 1942, before he left on his journey to London.
As the historian David Engel has demonstrated conclusively, whatever report Karski did bring with him on Jewish matters had only a very low priority, and he did not actually meet Szwarcbart until several months after his arrival in London. Hence the claim that the Polish Government-in-Exile in London handed the report over immediately to Szwarcbart and Zygielbojm is possibly an exaggeration, since the material in it was not regarded as having a high priority.
It is also most likely that whatever report Karski did bring with him, it was not written by him or based on his personal experiences. Note that in the above excerpt, the report is stated as describing living conditons in the Warsaw Ghetto "on the eve of the mass extermination", ie before 22 July, when the deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto began. Indeed, the material in the report does apply to the period before the deportations, when hunger was wide-spread and germans could visit the ghetto freely.
However, Karski claimed in "Secret State" to have personally visited the Warsaw Ghetto after his meeting with the two Jewish leaders, ie in August, after the beginning of the deportations, when conditions in the ghetto had changed substantially. Accordingly, he could not have written the report himself, since he had not visited the ghetto before the start of the deportations, and could not have personally witnessed the conditions applicable at that time. Karski must simply have been given a report that had already been prepared by Jewish sources; his claim to have visited the ghetto himself is most likely fictional.
The passage in "Black Book of Polish Jewry" continues:
The courier stated that long before the orgy of mass-murder which commenced at the end of July 1942, conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto were desperate. We read in his report: "The hunger was so great that the people became crazed. The aged and children by the hundreds would drop dead in the streets. Dead corpses lying about in the streets no longer made any impression upon the inhabitants of the Ghetto. Every morning in front of practically every gate there would lie naked corpses. They were stripped of their clothes and cast into the street to avoid funeral expenses. All the dead gathered during the day would be buried in common graves".
This confirms that the report carried by the unnamed courier described conditions before the start of the deportations in late July, and hence could be based on a visit to the ghetto in August, after the start of the deportations, as claimed by Karski in "Secret State".
Note also that "Black Book" does not explicitly claim that the courier who brought the report to London actually visited the ghetto and personally witnessed the conditions described in it.
"Black Book" returns to the "previously mentioned secret courier of the Polish underground organizations", on page 123, where it begins a long and highly detailed excerpt from the report of that courier on the deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto, an excerpt that extends from page 123 to page 131.
The excerpt is interesting in that it constantly refers to Treblinka as the place to which the Jews deported from Warsaw were taken and killed. For example, page 123:
....the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto meant only a terrible death in Treblinka.
Page 128:
The direction of the transport was invariably the same - the slaughter house of Treblinka.
Page 129:
Gradually, the remaining Jews began to realize that the Germans sent all the 'deportees' to Treblinka where they died under atrocious conditions, especially since news from Treblinka began to come in, whispered secretly at first, and more openly later.
Page 130:
In addition to this, houses were blockaded and their inhabitants sent to Treblinka.
Page 131:
As a rule, the workers went directly to the trains leading to death in Treblinka.
It is obvious that whoever wrote the report published in "Black Book of Polish Jewry", a report that according to that book was brought to London by a Polish courier who arrieved there early in December 1942, knew very well that the Jews deported from Warsaw were being taken to Treblinka. It is therefore out of the question that the person who wrote the report could have believed that those Jews were being taken to Belzec.
The logical conclusion is that whoever wrote the report on the deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto published on pages 123-131 of "Black Book" cannot have been the same person who wrote a report claiming that the Jews deported from Warsaw were being taken to Belzec via a sorting camp, and claiming that he personally visited that camp.
Could the long report on the deportation of the Warsaw Jews have been brought to London by Karski?
That report itself contains a clue as to the date of its composition. On page 130 of "Black Book" we read:
A special institution, the SS Wertefassung (Board of Property Seizure), which has been working without interruption until this very day (middle of November 1942) took over the abandoned Jewish property.
The report was therefore written and despatched to London after the middle of November. Accordingly it is highly unikely that it was Karski who brought it to London.
More to follow.