Conversations with an Executioner
255 Days Imprisoned with the Nazi who Destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto
Kazimierz Moczarski author Sean Gasper Bye translator
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Duckworth Books
Publishing:27th Aug '26
£25.00
This title is due to be published on 27th August, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

The classic work of non-fiction that describes the Nazis’ rise to power, written by the Polish freedom fighter imprisoned with one of WWII’s most notorious war criminals
Warsaw, 1949: freedom fighter and journalist, Kazimierz Moczarski is horrified to find himself locked up in a cell with the notorious Nazi official responsible for the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the death of over 50,000 people: Jürgen Stroop. This is the extraordinary insight into the mind of one of history’s most brutal war criminals.
‘Extraordinary, original, gripping, and painfully relevant to our times’ Philippe Sands, author of 38 Londres Street
‘A Polish classic which evokes the past but also sheds light on the predicaments of the present’ Anne Applebaum, author of Autocracy, Inc
Warsaw, 1949: freedom fighter and journalist Kazimierz Moczarski is being held in a maximum security prison, accused of being an enemy of the state by the Polish secret police. A survivor of the Warsaw Uprising, he is horrified to find himself locked up in a cell with the notorious Nazi official responsible for the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the death of over 50,000 people: Jürgen Stroop.
For 255 days Stroop talks to Moczarski of his life, entirely unrepentant of the crimes for which he would soon be executed himself. Conversations with an Executioner is Moczarski’s first-hand account of these extraordinary exchanges, an insight into the mind of one of history’s most brutal war criminals, and one that unflinchingly examines some of humanity’s darkest moments.
Never before published in the United Kingdom, Conversations with an Executioner is a book of enormous historical importance, written in masterful prose by a writer who tragically wouldn’t survive to see his work published.
‘This is a remarkable document. By turns shocking and chilling but always compelling, Moczarski's prison conversations with a senior, serial and shameless Nazi killer provide an invaluable insight into the heart of a hideous ideology' Jonathan Dimbleby, author of Endgame 1944
'An extraordinary book, almost impossible to categorise: simultaneously an act of witness and a work of the imagination, a brilliant portrait of a mediocre man’s rise within the Nazi hierarchy, unsparing and yet deeply human' Jane Rogoyska, author of Hotel Exile
‘Extraordinary, original, gripping, and painfully relevant to our times’ Philippe Sands, author of 38 Londres Street
'A Polish classic which evokes the past but also sheds light on the predicaments of the present' Anne Applebaum, author of Autocracy, Inc
'An intriguing document that portrays Stroop as the exemplary perpetrator: a mediocrity promoted above his abilities, but fanatical in his allegiance to Hitler, Himmler and Nazi ideology. Moczarski, working from memory, brings to light the workings of the Nazi mind with penetrating insight' Dan Stone, author of The Holocaust: An Unfinished History
'A remarkable feat of reportage and timely insight into the Nazi mind' Charlie English, author of The CIA Book Club
'Moczarski’s Conversations with an Executioner is quite simply one of the most remarkable books to emerge out of World War Two. Part unlikely memoir and part biography, it gives an insight into the Nazi mind that is as fascinating as it is chilling. Outstanding' Roger Moorhouse, author of Wolfpack: Inside Hitler’s U-Boat War
'A richly textured three-dimensional portrait of a two-dimensional mass murderer who presided over the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, never revealing a hint of a conscience. Although Hannah Arendt did not coin the phrase "the banality of evil" until much later, Jürgen Stroop already embodied it' Andrew Nagorski, author of Saving Freud
'This fascinating revelation of how a good little middle-class boy turns into a Nazi mass-murderer is all the more chilling for the forensic, at times witty, style in which his horrified cellmate and near-victim records it. A page-turner and must-read for understanding the workings of the Holocaust' Adam Zamoyski, author of Poland: A History
'Essential reading for all those interested in the Nazi occupation of Poland, the mass murder of Polish Jews and the larger history of the Second World War' Antony Polonsky, Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis University and Chief Historian, Global Education Outreach Project, Museum of Polish Jews in Warsaw
ISBN: 9780715655771
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
496 pages