politics
Conversations with an Executioner: a chilling classic reveals the mind of a Nazi mass murderer
Nearly 50 years after it was published, a book written by a Polish war hero, outlining his dialogue with an SS general cellmate has finally been translated into English
TL;DR
- Kazimierz Moczarski, a Polish resistance leader, spent 255 days in prison with SS General Jürgen Stroop, a perpetrator of the Warsaw Ghetto destruction.
- Moczarski used this time to investigate what drove Germans to become mass murderers, detailing their conversations in his book "Conversations with an Executioner."
- The book, first published in 1977 and now in its first uncensored English translation, offers a direct account of Stroop's unrepentant fascist views and his involvement in Nazi atrocities.
- The third prisoner, Gustav Schielke, also participated in questioning Stroop, and the three developed a complex, albeit tense, relationship.
- Moczarski wrote the book from memory after his release in 1956, and his daughter Elżbieta has worked for decades to ensure its complete English publication.