Paradoks o świadku

In Paweł Mościcki’s article Jan Karski features not only as one of the most important witnesses of history and the courier of Polish underground during World War II, but also as an “actor” of two of Claude Lanzmann’s films – Shoah and The Karski Report. In the course of his analysis the author critically revises the concept of the testimony as presented by Dominick LaCapra and discusses the theory of the witness as “the real actor” formulated by Lanzmann himself. Karski’s example serves here as an opportunity to show to what extent the status of the witness resembles the status of the actor and how the effectiveness of testimony depends on its transmission through words, gestures and behaviours, i.e. these elements which can be treated as the actor’s toolbox.