Jan Karski about the death of Szmul Zygielbojm, a member of the National Council of the Polish Government-in-Exile

A few months after Karski’s meeting with Szmul Zygielbojm, in April 1943, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto declared war against the Third Reich. With primitive weapons, they held up for three weeks, in the middle of May 1943, the enemy burned the entire ghetto and all who were inside. Nothing but smoldering ruins remained. Szmul Zygielbojm took his life in London. He left a letter that he decided to die as a protest against the passivity of the Allies towards the fate of the Jews, hoping that his death would save some lives of the remaining Jews.