Program. Guide. We can to. Well be exploring the story of witold pill electric could, the polishing resistance leader the subject of the book the volunteer the trustor of the hero that infiltrated auschwitz pow. We are joined by author, jack fairweather, a former war reporter in iraq and afghanistan and the author of wow a war of choice and the good war the is the Tampa Bay Bureau chief and a video journalist for the Washington Post in afghanistan and interviewing john is Robert Jan Vann pelt. He was an Expert Witness in the case against the british historian and author david irving. Robert jan its an historical adviser on numerous films. So before we get started i want to make a few housekeeping notes. Well have time, 15 minutes or so, for audience q a at the end of the program. So, make sure to hold your questions for the end if you and can well try to do our best to get to as many as possible. And please note that this program is being recorded and will be available on our Youtube Channel within the next few days and i will follow up with all of the registrants of the program with an email tomorrow with a link to jacks become for purchase and a link to the video recording of todays program. So, that is it from me and so without further adieu i turn it over to jack and robert jan. Hi. So, my name is Robert Jan Van pelt and i will be interviewing jack today but he is going first to give a presentation. I think 10 minutes, 15 minutes, presenting the core ideas and themes of the book, and so i think it would be probably best that if you state for them when you were we can Start Talking about what you discussed. So its all you. Thank you to samantha and the museum of jewish heritage. Its a great to have this opportunity to share the story of a truly remarkable man and i think in some ways the best way to begin telling you about who witness controlled pel lick peles ski was to find ill take you on a tour, brief tour through this life. So let me start by sharing my screen. I hope you can see that. Ike like you to begin picturing a scene with me. Its 119, 1940, just after dawn, and a polish underground operative named witness told pilecki is in war saw and show you the very thats the Apartment Building that he was sitting in on the third floor. And here is witold sitting in the left of this from. Pilecki is 38 years old, Research Officer in the pollyear cavalry, a devout catholic, father of who, and here are a couple of images of his kids. His wife, maria, a local school teacher, and the two of them, pilecki and his wife on their wedding day. One of my favorite images. Before the war, poland had been bust of the most pleurallistic societies in europe. A tenth of the population is jewish. That was the scene for when hitler forces invaded poland. The campaign of the country he received [loss of audio] [inaudible] Adolph Hitler and the stage dish plans to exterminate europes jew. Instead intent on the destruction of poll land by eliminating its professional classes, intel intellectuals, rounding up lawyers, doctors, journalists, writers, even the countrys top chess player, heres some midges from a western city from october 1939 showing a typical roundup and at this point the germans were arresting catholics and jews aligning. Indiscriminate roundup in many respects. Over 50,000 polish nationals were killed in the first few months of the german occupation, absolutely staggering figure. The following year in may 1940, germans began a new concentration camp in the south of the country, a camp they called auschwitz. Heres a prewar map of poland. Pilecki calm from the eastern part of the country and then the southern arrows were points to the town of ascension which the germans called auschwitz. Little was known about what was happening inside that camp. But pilecki learned from informants that it was a roundup due for war warlords, strongman governors, and the state ofcaw n was to infiltrate the camp and gather evidence of nazi crimes there. Heat get back to the apartment. Now imagine the sound of trucks pulling up outside, shouts and gunshots following. Theres a knock on the door. Its the building caretaker, he says get out while you still can. And pilecki doesnt. His mission is to remain. Its his sisterinlaws apartment and he is in the room with his nephew, a threeyearold boy and he notices the boys teddy bear has fallen on the ground. Just as there are sounds of footsteps on the stairwell outside in the door bursts open, pill electric can he reaches down and picks up the teddy bear and hands to its the boy, seeing he was scared and needed reassurance. And then going against every instinct he had he turns towards the german soldiers who have entered the apartment and steps into captivity. Three days later he arrived the auschwitz. Here is the gate to the camp. The terrible words that we all know, work sets you free, and here is pilecki now as a prisoner. Over the next two and a half years, pilecki forged an underground army in auschwitz that sabotaged facilities, assassinated ss officers, and plotted an armed uprising. He was arriving in auschwitz at the beginning as a concentration camp for polishing nationals. Thus he witnessed the steps by which the nazis conceived of the final solution for europes junes. He was the first person to seek to warn the world about the horrors of the camp and he was the first to try to stop them. Three years before allied commanders publicly acknowledged auschwitzs role, he was already calling on them through secret messages smuggled out of the camp to destroy auschwitz. Yet for all of this exploits, in uwitness his story is almost unknown. Indeed i only heard of it by chance. I met up with a war reporter friend of mine in 2011, and we were talking but our experiences in war zones trying to make sense of our experiences, and my friends had just come back from a trip to auschwitz and learn about a resistance cell in the camp and i think like a lot of you here today, that idea that resistance was possible in auschwitz is just so surprising to me. I knew i had to find out more and a year or so later a report of pilecki was finally translated into english, and it was the most remarkable document describing and great detail this rawness andunder general si his experience in the camp. Also left an unanswered many of the questions that pilecki him couldnt have known the answer to, such as what happened to all of the intelligence he smuggled out of the camp . Why was it that a the allies did not respond to his desperate mes for action against auschwitz. Sounds like a moment of pause and show you where pileckis writings were housed for many decades of the war that that small west london house in the polish underground study trust and one of the great mysteries about pileckis story was revealed to me as i began to dig into it which i why had we not heard about this man before and the answer is that after the war, poland was taken over by soviet backed communists and pill lick can i fought on against them just as much as he fought against the nazis in auschwitz and afterwards, and he was captured by the communists, executed, and all trace of his wartime record hidden away, and i single report of his was smuggled to london at the end of the war, and housed in this archive, and it wasnt publicized for decades for fear of spark arrest back home because pilecki and anyone in the polish underground was persecuted by the communists a the war as possible resisters and it took decades for his story to emerge in poland and here is a copy of that report that was kept under wraps for all those years. You can see pileckis looping blue hand writing around the edge and this is the filing cabinet that the polish underground study trust where that report still sits today. That second shelf from the top you can see a beige folder sitting perpendicular to the shelfs and that is the report so im always a little amazed to see it there because in my mind it should possibly be in the national archiveses in warsaw and thats where it is housed. Jack, many people who dent seem to be able to see the pictures. So i dont really know what happened. Can see it but. Okay. I can just try to maybe we can have another go at reloading it. Im not sure samantha has my wisdom. It be a shame if you cant see the illinoiss so ill stop sharing. Is that any better . Can you seep them. Seems to be better. Im guessing some people are saying that we we can see it, yes. Perfect. Im able to see them just fine. Okay. Im so sorry for inconvenience, and here is the filing cabinet where that report has sat. So, having acquainted myself with the report, having seen that sort of historical mystery contained in. I, what happened to intelligence he gathered and i think this sort of personal challenge that i felt from pileckis story, trying to understand what would make pilecki risk everything for such a mission. Also had a wife and two kids when i began Research Like pilecki and i wanted to understand what would drive someone to risk everything on such a mission. So with those questions i set off to begin gathering material, and in 016 the first person i wanted to meet was andre jack, im sorry again. Many people [loss of audio] you cant see anything . All right. Are we i think you just ended the turned off your power point . There, i see you but not your power point. Okay, im going to try again. And there it is. Okay. That looks good. I flew to warsaw in 2016 to meet remarkably pileckis son, andre. Was a nervous but meeting andre because he had just been a child when his father was executed and he had been told his dad was an enemy of the state, and wasnt until the fall of the iron curtain learned details about his fathers mission so it was a writing of his fathers are so, who was i to write the mans biography but i shouldnt have worried. He was the most delightful chap i could hope to meet. Here he is is in warsaw apartment. He was engaged, compassionate, and curious. He said, jack, im not sure what youll fine about out my dad or where you should start looking. I said im starting with you because when so little is known about your dad and his thinking, anything you can tell me is going to give me an insight. I write in the file called narrative, nonfiction, which means while it reads like a novel, everything in the pages of the book has to be true and that means that insights that andre could give me interest pileckis thinking would be so helpful for me writing about what drove pileckis actions in the camp. One of the things that really stunned me upon arriving in warsaw is storying how many people were alive who has known pilecki or even fought alongside him, and even better, was when i was able to meet these gentlemen and women and take them to the places where pilecki had performed some of his deeds. And one of the key places wanted to go to was that apartment where pilecki volunteered for his mission. Here it is this is a few days after meeting andre. On the third floor, we found the door and we knocked, hoping to see inside this historic space, and no one answered, so with a bit of a loss of my research suggested as we were there anyway we might as well record some audio of march us the steps and banging on the door like the gestapo has done which is a good job we did because thats what it tike to wake a rather sleepy inhabitant inside. It was a student and it was midday and they were still fast asleep, and completely unaware that this apartment was the scene of a truly historic moment in history. Thats the room in which pilecki volunteered for his mission to auschwitz from. We have seemed to have the same problem. Peel cant see it or maybe just stop intervening. I dont really know what to do. Its hard to comment on houston whether its a localizes issue or whether everyone i think i am nearing the end so i think we should probably just go on. I can see it but i think im one of the few ones. Ill describe the images so everyone can get a sense for those who cant see it, and the apartment he began his mission, picture in you mind now a very tidy student apartment. So, one thing i wanted to do was bring someone who had been in that apartment back there and you may remember that child who had pilecki comforted just moments before he was arrested, here he is, make, sitting on pileckis knee in 1939. Turned out make was still alive. Here he is when i met hill in war warsaw. Picture ran 58yearold gentleman looking very dapper on the banks of the river. Took him back to the apartment, and showed him around, and it was the first time he had been back since the war, and returning there pushed him to remember all sorts of details, confirmed the layout of the different bits of furniture in the room. And also spoke about the moment that pilecki was arrested. What in that [inaudible] and another yes. They ask mother is there any men . In this same moment, uncle moved from this room. What going on . Whats going on . He was ready to go, had this jacket on. I think he was prepared because he has time to what did he say to you when he was leaving . Did he say anything . Do you remember . So im i showed the video of him describing walk around the apartment, showing the moment when the germans burst in and the video shows him tearing up a little bit at the end, and by the end of that visit, he was in tears remembering pileckis engagement with his family. So, that was part of my approach to telling the story. Wanted to follow in pileckis footsteps as much as possible, trying those who had known him, take them to the places they had seen him in action, but i knew i was going to need hundreds of thousands of details and that is when i knew the book would be possible was arriving the archives the Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum and stoffering 31 2 thousand prisoner testimonies hundreds which described pilecki in action or described moments he would have witnessed, and so i was able to Start Building up scenes, test pileckis own writing for accuracy and creating a really immersive experience of pileckis time in the camp, and this approach was great for giving readers that sense of being alongside pilecki, but i wanted to leave you with a small anecdote but how this approach also helped me solve one of those great mysteries that i began the project with, which was to answer that question what happened to his reports he something id out of the camp and he describes sending his first report in october 1940, few weeks after his time in auschwitz and he has already witnessed this incredibly brutal atmosphere whereby the germans would beat, starve to death and brutalize the prisoners, just to emphasize again withpolish nationals, both jus jews and catholics or polishing nationals. Witnessed this, and he knew he wad to inform the world. He gets us the name of his manning, alexander, but he says no more. No doubt he was concerned that he had said more in his writing that perhaps after the war the communists would have tracked him down and arrested him. Armed with that name, my researcher in warsaw was able to find alexanders family, his son, and heres a picture of him. He had no idea his dad was pileckis first messenger from the camp but he know who hays dad had stayed with dad had stayed with and armed with that nami researcher went back to that underground study trust in west london and there are hundreds of reports from the underground in the archives, but with that name she managed to track done a folder in which was contained the story of how pileckis report cared out by alexander from the camp as a released prisoner made its way across occupied europe, to reach the brits in london, and i describe that incredible journey in the book, and i want just to leave you today with the remarkable message that pilecki wanted to tell the world in october 1940. This is what he wanted to say. We beg the polish government for the love of god to bomb the camp and end our torment. Should be die in the attack it would be a relive given the conditions. The urgent and wellconsidered request sent on behalf of comrade i about he the witness of their torment. That to be told pilecki. When i heard to the words i had goose bums but a they are verbatim what pilecki made alexander enemy rise while he was in the memorize while he was in the camp and its a stunning idea to think what might have happened had the allies intervened and i went on to trace up to ten of pileckis reports, each time i was there to find using the same sort of process of deductive reasoning and finding family members and retracing journeys, finding their reports made their way to london and the reason why i argue in the book, why im so passionate about pileckis story, the reason why its so important is that he charts the steps through his writings by which the nazis turned auschwitz interest a concentration camp for polish nationals into the center of the final solution and his reports are bear witness in an extraordinary way to different steps, and its one of histories great what might have businesses, what would have hand had the world listened sooner. So, i would like to leave it there and reconnect with you all and my sincere apologies for the failure of the screen showings. Its frustrating but hopefully robert jan and i can enlighten you with the conversation instead of with images. So thank you very much. Thank you, jack. Just i would like to just clear amount built of chronology if thats okay. Historian chronology is everything and so pilecki was there around two and a half years in auschwitz, yes . Yes. He escaped in april 43 . Yes. So, there are really two major phase or three major phase in the history of the camp that he sees. He sees the original basically the formation of the polish concentration camp. The concentration cam, nationalists, and then already in 41 there is something of a transition when russian prisoners started arriving there and the first gassings takes place, and when also you get the mass murder and described it in some details of the prisoners not deemed to be useful and are sent originally to a to gas chambers in germany itself that are used for the killings of people who are murdered as part of the t4 program. The program to kill the disabled, and then finally in the spring of 1942, troops arriving in auschwitz to be put and initially they were in four gas chambers, and just [loss of audio] cremor to crematorium, the gas chambers are complete, they began the couldnt instruction in 42, the time that pilecki leaves. Now, i just wondered because there is of course quite a extensive literature on reports from auschwitz, and that focuses very much on the reports that actually came out in 1944. And so most famous report, report that escape. Fred the camp and tried to warn the hungarians of what awaits them. The troops have not a been transported to allwitness and that information reaches switzerland and then london and washington and there is a second the summer of 1944, as the raf and the United States army, the air force, auschwitz should be bombed. And this then is particularly the bombing of the great crematorium and just would like interested in your sense of the pilecki report, the pilecki request for bombing in 1940, when auschwitz is still a relatively small concentration camp and the final solution doesnt mean at that moment yet. And report comes out in 44, requests for momming at the time and i wonder if you would be able to reflect a little bit in compare and contrast it but about the two dilemmas, the credibility of those reports, and pilecki in the perceived [loss of audio] maybe could play a little bit with that. Thank you robert. Thats a great overview and i think helps show that the forward trajectory of pileckis story, and we all know about that debate, or many of us do in 1944 whether or not to bomb allwitness and its back symbol as to what we should have done to try to stop the holocaust, but of course what pileckis story does is focuses attention on his request, many years before that, in 1940, they are different circumstances and its important to understand the context by which pileckis report from the camp is considered by the allied high command, in december 1940, early 1941, britain is under attack by the blitz. The number of operational bombers that the raf has is below 200. There is no immediate allies or hope of help from the americans, britain is very much alone and in some ways as i came to uncover, the discussion in on the command between men like the are marshal, and his subordinate, Richard Pierce i came to appreciate their concerns. They debated whether or not to bomb auschwitz and to consider pill lick ski pileckis and. He recognize evidence it would be impossible to reach with british war planes all the way to auschwitz which was true there was no radar at that stage. Would have been the Longest Mission ever undertaken by the raf. Would have really pushed the bounds of possibility, and Richard Pierce says, look, its it would be incredibly difficult to do it but it would potentially be a political symbol, and pierce is in a way wants someone like churchill to order it, but that idea is really interesting. The raf decided against bombing auschwitz in early 1941 for those reasons. But i came to feel during the research that had they tried, however doomed it would have been a political symbol, very powerful one, and in alerting the world to existence of allwitness which is a crazy thing is how long its name was hardly known among the allies, but it would also have created a precedent of trying to stop nazi atrocities and that is a Crucial Point because two years later, the americans were onboard, there was access then to heavy bombers, liberated lancasters that were more than capable of hitting auschwitz, but when the allies came again to debate this idea of bombing the camp, to stop the atrocities there, they actually referred back to that first debate in that files to argue as to why they shouldnt bomb auschwitz. They said it would want be possible ump just be a political symbol and that debate in 1944 was being informed by that first request from pilecki, and i think thats why its so important to both understand the context and for the decision regarding pileckis request and see how it then plays now allied thinking, this constant stepping back from taking action. Interesting thing of course is that in 19 one over the great problems in the history of the allied response to holocaust, particularly the holocaust of the jews, from 1942 always had that the english and he americans had to deal with antisemitism their own population and any intervention to be done on behalf of the jews was considered to be unpopular and would make the war more difficult to fight because it would now become a war to save jews and that was of course not something that many people would agree with. And of course in the 1940 debate the jewish existence at auschwitz democrat not exist and it was primarily a polish cam so some way i would say theres the possibility of actually an interesting look at lets call ill the how the prejudices of in this case the military in the england which were very much pro polish in 1940. They felt the polls were heroic and deserving people and of course al an lie even if they hadnt support he them much in 1939 but come to war on their behalf. That would have i think colored anded their discussion in shaded their discussion in a way nat 1944 when it was about the jews in auschwitz, it might have gone into a different direction. Now, i havent really compared these discussions from that perspective, but i think that probably it would be a very interesting way to actually look into the souls of these military men and look at their prejudices. I came to the conclusion i write about this in the poock. For me a huge part of pileckis story is having his experience in the camp contrast evidence to what was happening in the allied capitol and theyre expense to what he was telling them. Think i came to the conclusion that while it was understandable the allied response or the british response in 1941 to that first request, bill the late 42, and 43, the body of material from pilecki, from many sources, really made action the lack of action unconscionable, and while i take approach to history we shouldnt seek to judge or overwrite our experiences on to those of the time i try to let everyone have their say and present their thinking. It does become a really damning indictment of the failure to take action. Theres something else. I have the pleasure of writing once a short biography of a person, young man who ultimately was killed in the holocaust because i edited his diary and had to right an 80page biography of him to understand the diary and row search his life and a certain moment where it clicks, relationship that you fall in love with the character, that you suddenly get to the core of what the man is, both in your case and in my case it was a man. Just would like to know with pilecki in the beginning he is a shadowy figure and so what was the the moment that you thought, okay, i know who you are now. I think really i understand you and then that you get this sense of actually a relationship between you and him and you look forward in some way shaking his hand in the afterlife. Very nice thought. I think of barristers quest is pursuit of your subject and often feels like youre playing catchup but i remember the first time where i really felt that i did arrive at the same point in time as pilecki and that is when i staged a recreation of his amazing escape from the camp and its one reason just urge everyone to read the book because his escape from auschwitz is one of the great wartime escapes from any concentration camp and he write about in his report and amazingly a fellow escapee wrote about the experience and those two narratives together give such a rich experience of what it was like to escape the camp. I wanted to follow in his footsteps so that meant escaping as it were from the camp, the same hour, the same day, albeit decade later. So, that meant 2 00 a. M. , i sort of started making a dash for it along the banks of the river, crossing over the same railway bridge that pilecki had done, and finding the spot that he described in his report that doesnt identify otherwise when the sun starts to rise and he makes a dash for it across the fields to where the to shelter and pilecki described this hundred mile journey across southern pole poland, and i visited those victims, usually turn villages usually turn up and ask for the oldest person and on several occasions way introduced to families who had sheltered pilecki and his two fellow escapers, and it was really lovely moment, reaching the safe house where pilecki spent the time recuperating, safe from nazi clutches, and maybe i can just share with you now that scene. Heres pill lick can i million electric can i and his two fellow escapers. Thises the man who im so sorry here is pilecki and heres his host and at that safe house, and here is that house today when i got visit, and that little girl [inaudible] that table is the table where pilecki sat down and started writing his first thoughts about the camp as preman and i got to sit at that table and it was a moment which i think you may empathize with and i thought i had caught up with my subject and i got to share in that moment, both with the amazing hospitality of my hosts but also that moment when i got to reflect on pileckis experience in the camp as he had done at the same spot. Now, if you were to meet him now, what would be the first question you would ask him . We ick think for those of you who read through the book, i think he the survives the camp but when he returns to his family, both after escaping and then in post war poland, he really struggles to connect with his family and a real sense of tragedy there. Of course theyre very good reasons. Poland after the war was subjected to communist takeover which was emphasizing for everyone here, we think of the 1945 victory parades. That wasnt the experience of poland and pill electric okay pilecki was sprunged in this new struggle and he couldnt edge gauge with his family and that was brought home to me by a detail his son told me that pilecki has never respond to his wife maria about his experience in the camp in the years afterwards, and that really touched me, knowing how he wasnt able to share his experience and one of the last things he wrote as a freeman is one of his most beautiful and it was talking about sitting with friends in the camp, knowing that they were going to be executed the next day, and then reflect reflecting to him the great regret in life they had not shared more with those they loved and that wag pilecki lazy final thoughts as pileckis final thoughts as a free man and if i could see him i would just want to ask him whether he felt that he could have at that point Start Connecting with his family again. I think everyone has had experience of stress and turmoil in their lives, we know how disassociating that can be, how that can drive wedges between those we love and id love to think that there was a possibility of redemption and i think pilecki is opposite in that final comments and its something maybe we can all take away from his story. Im right now looking at the questions have been raised and im picking out if samantha is okay with that, maybe do it. One question which came from basically its about the title, the book, the volunteer, and the question of course to what extent was he really a volunteer in the sense that he was in military professional and that he saw his task of course as part of a continuous war that he had fought in the war as an officer, in the while before the the government never capitulated and that this was a continuation of it. So to what extent can you really talk about him as a volunteer, he was a volunteer, because at a certain moment that would suggest he had a choice if he had quite a highly sense of duty and professionalism than in some way you might suggest maybe that he was not a volunteer, at least not in relationship to his own super ego. That was very great question. Im not sure if your catty carr who wrote very brilliantly songs about the great escapers in the book i write about but if you are, hell low and i loved your work. Its a great question. The book is called the volunteer and that does give an image of pilecki raising his hand and saying ill do it. The story of how his mission was conceived is such an important one because it really cuts to the heart of something about pilecki that is informed so much of his time in the camp and that is this. Pilecki doesnt write much but politics other than to say he doesnt like politics and politicians and the way they use issues to divide people. But there is one great political act in his life and that is when he stands up to his boss in the underground, this is shortly after the germans have occupied warsaw, and he is taken up the fight against them, his boss wants to publish a manifesto that is shawistic, nationalistic, defines poland as being catholic and only for catholic polls, and for pilecki its clearly divisive and takes a stand fence his boss and insists the sign up with me main polishing undergowned that has a much more inclusive agenda and his boss does, and but in doing so, he volunteers pilecki for a mission, a mission to auschwitz and its such a point in in the book because that really tell as lot about who pilecki was. He was taking a stand in the name of having poland that was inclusive and which everyone banned together to fight the nazi. Of course there is an impossible decision. He still avoided the first round up that coincide with the camp as he was struggling with this decision. But in the end, of course, he did go. And that for me is the essence of voluntary and willing choice and why that scene began up began the presentation for me its important for that moment when he set aside, decided to leave behind his family, has an immediate circle, everything you think you might be concerned with to begin this extraordinary journey. Now, one of the people of course toe is very famous as a man who informed especially about holocaust is going car ski. He became very famous of course is because of the movie where he gives incredible testimony. It is very important in the movie. One of the interesting things is right at the beginning of the testimony its presented in the movie, when he goes so he is invited by troop leaders, to and see for himself what is happening inside the ghetto in 1942 so he can in some way, when he goes to the allied capitals he can say ive seen this with my own eyes, i can bear witness to something ive seen, it is not hearsay. Im very interestingly, he was an aristocrat who is a Roman Catholic aristocrat. He admits to some prejudice against jews. And then he says actually was quite wonderful because the jewish leaders i was meeting outside of the ghetto they were not at all jewish. They were like polish gentlemen. In the moment they go into the ghetto, they slip through a door of a wall and a house and their suddenly different. They were amongst themselves. It is very interesting it was incredible love and admiration but also for the fact that some way he boasts both recognizes his president s in the struggle. Now when he goes into ouster which. He does not go there because of what happened to the troops. Its not important. But it becomes and since we are here i think that maybe it would be a good thing for a moment to consider the kind of relationship to what was known in poland as a jewish problem. In the way he struggles with that. Select that is a great question. Thats one i thought i needed to tackle in the book. In prewar poland was multiethnic, diverse, Jewish Population in the world heard or saw was a pot of ideas and culture. But it was also seeing antisemitism. I think that i fell because of research its important for the distinction between polish and prewar. And that of the not these, think we say after semitism we tend to think about a grow towards print that is not what life was like in prewar poland. They were nasty material appearing in the press. It was a campaign to polish jews immigrate to israel. There are different types of discrimination. And that was partly his world. He came from a conservative, catholic background. I found no evidence to suggest he had antisemitic jews. Even had i done, what i think makes history important is that he left that all behind in his journey to the camp. And he found a way to reach beyond his immediate circle of friends. Beyond his immediate conception of being polish and who he was in order to risk his life to call on crimes against pows and crimes on jewish families brought to the camp for extermination. That vermeil poses an interesting question to all of us today, how do we reach beyond to empathize with the suffering. What are story can really teach us. Its about to suggest theres one question and the many here will know his name he is quite celebrated and is remarkable career. The news of the holocaust in 1942 folding peyton to touch an incredible job of bringing that to the allies. And rightly celebrated the United States with the museum he is well known name. We know of course many reasons why his name is not well known. Because of that suppression during communism. I was just wondering why since the 90s when his material is being widely available, why is he not being celebrated in the same way . Why did it wait until now that we are finally talking about this remarkable man . This is pure speculation. I think if we looking at the history of research and warmest ever really Good Research department. The excellent stories. My sense is a little bit there was enormous amount of emphasis in the Research Department on resistance. The resistance in the camp in the 1970s and 80s. Im not in some way, many publications appear at the time that it was mentioned. I think that in some way, the emphasis on resistance and lets say the communist era and that museums, enterprise which is somewhat the core of Much Research done on our switch. We always refer to what it is doing. In the moment in the late 1990s now becomes more known, and some way research does and into some way the focus of the easier have shifted away from the issue of resistance. I think that in some way, that in some way the discovery of the activities in some way came too late for the natural flow of what the ouch which museums, what material they were working on. Doesnt mean the research the new focus on research in their work, certainly center on there are many things only look at the kinds of an and flow of things and research in the whole history of the holocaust where we are looking at Different Things of the day that we look 20 years ago. Nowadays of course, gender studies are very much informing our idea of what actually a realtor moment in 19 90s we look in 40 years on the history of elsa which. We realize the bulleted men and not looked at women. So certain moment that we should focus to get basically to become the pure and for work to be done. I certainly think that it is probably time, a generation later for a new kind of consideration of the question of research in ouster which. There many unanswered questions. Talk a polish Roman Catholic resistance groups versus the Jewish Resistance groups. On the resistance between these in after which because the main camp and the canal are still that relationship. I think it certainly once resistance come back on the agenda, that he will be a central character in all of that. That at least my explanation. And i admit that the first book i wrote was really conceived in the 1980s, written an early 1990s. He is not mentioned in that book. And ultimately in might later work he is mentioned. Certainly after your book, he was the even greater character in whatever narrative i might write in the future about auschwitz. We are now a little after 3 00 p. M. I think with everyones time, i would really like to thank you very much for this excellent presentation. Even if we have some issues with the slides i think. Once i meant to give it back, samantha. Select thank you, thank you jack. Two echo what robert young said, this is an incredible presentation. Thank you jack for the work that you have done. And everyone watching, please go out and buy jacks book. I know we have a lot of questions that came and we did not have time to get to today. But hopefully you can find your answers to your questions in jacks book but is available now in politics and prose on amazon. Com a be sending out those links in the coming days along with more information about jack and more information about our upcoming public programs. We are continuing to do these programs twice a week, tuesday and thursday afternoon eastern time. Stay tuned for more. And thank you guys again. Heres a look at books being published this week and where law and, Andrew Wiseman lead prosecutor Robert Kohler special Counsel Office gives an inside look into russias interference in the 2016 president ial election. Corey lewandowski and david bossi senior advisers to president trumps reelection campaign, offered to their case by the president deserves a second term in trump, america first. And in rise up, civil rights leader al sharpton makes his case for americans or take action to create a better country for all people. Also being published this week in demand, who ran washington. Journalist peter baker and Susan Glasser look at the life and career of former white house chief of staff and secretary of state james baker. Jennifer taub has her thoughts on how the american suffer when the rich commit whitecollar crimes and big dirty money. Live not by lies american conservative Senior Editor argues that American Christians are facing encroaching totalitarianism. Find these this coming week wherever books are sold and watch for many of the authors in the future on book tv on cspan2. Youre working book tv next poulter prize looks at the first 39 years of john f. Kennedys life, than author juliet sure the gig economy exploits users and workers and because of this weekends National Book festival watch after words an earlier time, 6 00 p. M. Eastern. Tonight former fbi Deputy Assistant peter discusses his career in the work he did on the Russian Investigation find more information on your Program Guide or online booktv. Org. Back good evening i am alan price director of the library and museum. On behalf of my library and colleagues im welcome all of you are watching tonights program online. Thank you for joining us this evening. I would also like to acknowledge the generous support of our underwriters of the Kennedy Library forms. Lead sponsors bank of america on the Lowell Institute intermediate sponsors, the boston globe and wbur. Look forward to a robust question and answer. This evening, but you will see full instructions on the screen for submitting your questions during the youtube payur