Jan Karski | Karol Badyna

About the Work and the Creator / Hanna Goldberg

Jan Karski (2009) by Karol Badyna was placed in Tel Aviv University at the initiative of the Polish Embassy in Israel to commemorate Jan Karski (Kozielewski). A Catholic Pole, Karski (1914-2000) served from 1940-1943 as a liaison officer between the underground in German-occupied Poland and the Polish government-in-exile. During his second mission to Paris in 1940, he was informed on and captured by the Gestapo, underwent severe torture, and attempted suicide by slashing his wrists to avoid betraying the underground's secrets. He was later released from captivity in a daring operation by the Polish underground.

In his last mission to the west, in late 1942 and early 1943, Karski testified, at the behest of the leaders of Poland's Jewish community, to the horrors of the Holocaust in Poland before British leaders in London, the US president, and other dignitaries in the free world. Since his identity as an underground emissary was thereby exposed, he was unable to go back to Poland and remained in the US, where he continued to testify about the Holocaust. He studied at Georgetown University in Washington, where he went on to teach from 1952-1992.

The bronze statue depicts Karski sitting on the right side of a typical Polish village bench, erected on a bronze platform. He is meticulously dressed in a tailored suit, with a tie and a handkerchief in his vest pocket - the way he used to dress as a Professor of History and Political Science at Georgetown. His left-hand holds a walking stick, his legs are crossed and his right hand rests on his left knee. He gaze is facing forward and slightly downward. Right next to him, on the bench, lies a chess table with 18 pieces. With time, the statue became covered with patina, so that the black and white pieces can no longer be differentiated. Chess was Karski's favorite game. According to the artist, the layout of chess pieces is borrowed from a chess masters' game and ensures a white victory in two clever moves.1 The statue's left side is vacant, so as to allow people to sit next to the sculpted image. Behind Karski is Beit Hatfutsot (Jewish Diaspora Museum) and he faces the Faculty of Life Sciences Building.

Badyna sculpted Karski's likeness according to still photos and films, including Claude Lanzmann's Shoah (1985), where Karski is featured as a witness. The statue at Tel Aviv University is one of a series of almost identical statues - apart from slight differences in the bench’s shape or other details - created by Badyna in 2002-2016. The first was placed at Georgetown University in 2002, and others in New York, Poland (in Kielce, Kraków, Łódź, and Warsaw), and Estoril, Portugal. Another statue will soon be placed in London.

Karol Badyna was born in Poland in 1960. A Professor at the Jan Makejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, he sculpts portraits, busts and memorials, classic and monumental statues, reliefs, and epitaphs. His sculptures and monuments can be seen in many public spaces worldwide. One of his best known is the Empty Chair Memorial in Kraków’s Ghetto Heroes Square. The project, executed jointly with the Lewicki Łatak Project Office, won the Gold Award in the Urban Quality Award Competition (Frankfurt am Main) in 2011. Another well-known work by Badyna is the Statue of Frederic Chopin erected at the Singapore Botanic Gardens in 2008. The bronze monument depicts Chopin in natural proportions, dressed in typical contemporary clothing, seated on a chair, and playing the keyboard while a woman is watching him. In his various pieces, Badyna uses different techniques of bronze sculpture, including sand casting, particularly for small statues, lost-wax casting, and welding.

Bench Statues: Commemorating History

Bench statues are a common genre of outdoor sculpture used to commemorate important historical figures. Usually erected in public gardens and university and college campuses or near buildings related to the sculpted figure, they are used both as a resting place and to convey an educational, sociocultural message. These sculptures are usually commissioned by public entities and are mostly figurative and realistic. A famous bench statue that combines portrait and memorial art is The Allies by Lawrence Holofcener, erected in London in 1995 to mark the war's 50th anniversary. This bronze statue presents President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill chatting casually.

Some bench sculptures are not monuments. American artist George Segal erected several statues depicting anonymous figures in daily life scenes, including Three People on Four Benches, Cleveland, 1979. Segal pioneered a unique technique, wrapping live human models with plaster-impregnated gauze strips to make orthopedic casts and dying the bronze statues with special, light-colored rust, emphasizing the gauze strips' texture. Badyna’s Karski statue was commissioned by the Polish Foreign Ministry. He designed it in realistic style, using biographic and visual elements related to the historical figure, not only to celebrate his heroism but also to convey through his unique personal story the humane and tolerant aspect of every person, particularly in adversity. In doing so, Poland - where most Nazi extermination camps were located - wishes to present its other side by highlighting the history of the Polish underground and its freedom fighters.