The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland. Note Addressed to the Governments of the United Nations on December 10th, 1942, and other documents.

<<The first official information to the Western general public of the Nazi's systematic extermination of the Jews.>> During World War II, Poland maintained a Government-in-Exile in London. This Government Paper issued by Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was an appeal to the worlds’ conscience. It details the systematic extermination of the Jewish population of Poland, with particular emphasis on the mass deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to the extermination camp at Treblinka. The facts presented were gathered, at great personal risk, by Jan Karski (Kozielewski), a Polish Government emissary in occupied Poland “who was smuggled into the Warsaw ghetto and into a concentration camp in the Lublin area. The horrors he witnessed marked him deeply and propelled him to become not only the messenger of the Polish underground, but to concentrate on giving voice to the suffering of the dying Jews. In November 1942, Karski reached London, delivered the report to the Polish government-in-exile, and set out to meet Winston Churchill, other politicians, journalists, and public figures. Upon completing his mission, Karski went on to the United States, where he met with President Roosevelt and other dignitaries, and tried in vain to stir up public opinion against the massacre of the Jews.” (Yad Vashem). Cited by Lucy Dawidowicz  in her work, The Holocaust and the Historians (1983) p. 167, Karski's report could not be more explicit in its description of the horrors nor in its plea for help: "The new methods of mass slaughter applied during the last few months confirm the fact that the German authorities aim with systematic deliberation at the total extermination of the Jewish population of Poland and of the many thousands of Jews whom the German authorities have departed to Poland from Western and Central European countries and from the German Reich itself. The Polish Government consider it their duty to bring to the knowledge of the Governments of all civilized countries the following fully authenticated information received from Poland during recent weeks