Humanity has always been a slippery concept. Jan Karski, a Polish diplomat who warned the Allies of genocide only to be ignored and disbelieved, learned this brutal lesson first hand.
Masterfully played by David Strathairn, the quietly dignified Karski tells his cautionary tale in “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski.” This harrowing 90-minute solo show, directed by Derek Goldman at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, takes us on an odyssey through the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Strathairn may be best known for movies such as “Good Night and Good Luck” and “Nomadland” but the Emmy winner has also shined in many plays at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater, notably “Underneath the Lintel.” His formidable and unflashy performance here will etch the story into your memory.
Forgetfulness is a disease in our short-attention-span culture and this play is a bracing act of remembrance that urges the viewer to look deep within. What makes Karski so heroic was that he resisted the impulse to save himself if it meant sacrificing his principles.
A diplomat who joined the Polish resistance during World War II, Karski endured imprisonment, torture and starvation to investigate the tragedy of the Warsaw Ghetto and the abject horror of the concentration camps.
“I report what I see,” as he puts it. “I am a camera.”
He fervently believed that once the Allies knew about German’s systematic extermination of the Jews something would be done. He was wrong.
The virtuoso Strathairn inhabits many characters here, making a chilling Hermann Goering and an imposing FDR, who has no questions for Karski regarding the Holocaust, inquiring instead about the state of horses in Poland.
Complacency is the enemy Karski tried to fight, bearing witness to the depth of the savagery he witnessed over and over again. It cost him greatly to keep delivering his testimony amid rampant distrust but he was willing to pay the price.
Karski sacrificed much in his attempt to shake the conscience of the world. Many of the people he knew and loved were broken by the war. But he never shrank from his own moral code. Ever modest, he rarely mentioned his heroism to his students as a post-war professor at Georgetown.
After the turmoil of the last few years, it’s all too easy to see how seductive apathy can be, keeping your head down and hoping someone else will do the right thing.
“Remember This” is ultimately a call for integrity, for speaking your mind even if it costs you.
So many of the crises that confront us now, from the erosion of civil liberties to the perils of climate change, will only deepen in the face of denial and ignorance.
“Governments have no souls,” as Karski notes, only people do.
Contact Karen D’Souza at [email protected].
‘REMEMBER THIS: THE LESSON OF JAN KARSKI’
By Clark Young and Derek Goldman, presented by Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Through: Dec. 18
Where: Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley
Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $20-$94; 510-647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org
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